SALT LAKE CITY — Don’t let yourself be thrown by the lower-case letters in the title of "the art of confession: Renewing Yourself Through the Practice of Honesty" by Paul Wilkes. The author has chosen to mark the difference between Confession (as in the Sacrament of Reconciliation) and honesty (as in "I’m sorry," or an apology to another person.) Confession is first and foremost an honest conversation with ourselves that lifts the burden of guilt and restores our humanity, Wilkes writes. All of the world’s great faiths and spiritual disciplines have addressed the need for personal confession; it also is seen as a pillar of mental health, because it is about self-examination and it demands that we be honest with ourselves. Wilkes insists that confession not be trivialized; it strips away the veil that we often cast over actions, until we acknowledge the relief and renewal it can bring. "The truth is that confession as I seek to redefine it, is wise and strong and necessary, unburdening both the soul and the psyche to live a productive and fuller life," he writes. Wilkes has written more than 20 books, some of them specifically Catholic, some not. This book is a combination of both, but is mostly not a Catholic piece. It is a selection of the One Spirit Book Club, and is an easy read. It’s a small book and it moves easily, quoting from the likes of Thomas Merton and the Dalai Lama. "The core assumption of every human heart is the desire to be good," Wilkes writes in his introduction. "It is ‘our goal’ to find our best self conscience, a mysterious, force within that urges us toward good actions and away from bad. Having a free will means we choose to listen to that voice: trustworthy, dependable, fair. Yet often we fail ourselves and others in ways both small and significant." Wilkes’ introduction is powerful, but doesn’t carefully delineate confession and Confession. More reading is necessary, and the reader will not regret that reading. "People are the sum of their mistakes," Wilkes writes. "We instead are realigning ourselves through confession." These days, many people insist they have done nothing wrong, simply ‘acted out,’ and if they feel the need to confess they do this through talk shows or in chat rooms where the supposed honest confession rings hollow, Wilkes observes. He has a chapter on the "banality of evil" as it applied to the actions of the Nazis. In that culture, he said, it became the norm. He also writes of "the banality of guilt:" Dulled by our sense of right and wrong, we admit offenses against others and ourselves without "taking responsibility for our actions, not feeling the need to take corrective action so as not to repeat those offenses." Wilkes quotes David Brooks in the New York Times: "Government, church and family seem unable to right themselves. Nazism, for example, became a ‘Government of sin.’" We confess our own sinfulness, and guilts large and small, but do we mean it? Do we mean our apologies to our friends and family? Do we mean our apologies to God? These are the differences between confession and Confession. The final four chapters of the book are devoted to methods by which readers can live lives more in tune with their conscience, accepting responsibility without debilitating guilt when they fail, while at the same time working to "do the right thing" the next time. Virtue, Wilkes writes, "is a daily effort to see more clearly, act more justly." "The art of confession: Renewing Yourself Through the Practice of Honesty," Paul Wilkes, Workman Publishing, 133 pages, $18.95.
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