In 2019, on the 28th Wednesday of Ordinary Time, I decided to stop believing in the Christian God.
It happened like this: my homeroom adviser strode into my classroom, kitten heels clicking on tile like stilettos, and ushered us all into the small chapel on the first floor. After we had all taken our places on the pews, Father Daniel, the priest, stood at the front of the room and cleared his throat. “I’m glad to have you here today for the sacred Sacrament of Confession. The Lord forgives all sins, so you can be honest.”
I let the priest’s words wash over me, considering instead the giant crucifix of Jesus above him. He was naked on that cross, face contorted in brutal agony, and alone. How many generations has he watched, never once coming down to join them.
I knew the drill: write your sins on a scrap of paper, walk into the flimsy, dust-plagued confession booth, and say, “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, and my sins are…” then wait for forgiveness. I’d go last, so I had about 20 minutes to find some sin real enough to offer.
When the first girl finally entered the confession booth, the countdown began. I gripped my pencil tight and shut my eyes, thinking hard, but nothing came. Worse, it was so warm that I could feel the slick salty sweat on my skin, and hear nothing but the whir of fans and the scratch of pencils held by people who knew exactly what they needed cleansed. Good for them. That moment I was Moses, no words and sandpaper tongue, wishing for a burning bush to instruct me. So I waited, but it was still just me, my sins, and this paper.
As my turn approached, I was desperate for a solution, barely waiting for my teacher’s approval before racing to the bathroom. If God wouldn’t send a burning bush, I’d help him out—with Google. So I hid inside a stall, pulled out my phone, and searched “top ten most common sins.”
Here were my options:
Pride (It’s true enough. Humility isn’t my strong suit.)
Fear (I’m always scared. If I confessed that now, I’d always have to.)
Anger (Iffy too. Like with fear, I’m always angry.)
Just imagining the confession made my tongue feel thick in my mouth, like skin pulled too tight over muscle. God, it turns out, forgot to send divine inspiration through my Google search. I was reminded of the parable of the invisible gardener. If the gardener were invisible, intangible, and eternally elusive, how is that different from a gardener that isn’t there at all?
Uneasy, I went back to the chapel. As I watched my classmates file one by one into the booth, eyes flicking back to the singular Jesus on his singular cross, I understood why it all felt so empty.
If God wasn’t there to hear me, I’d confess to no one. I’d kneel on old cushions and confess to blank walls, not even to the priest, who I wouldn’t see behind the partition and who says he isn’t really there because he’s merely a stand-in for God.
But even if God weren’t there, the priest would still be. I could confess to him instead, speak while hearing his breathing, a reminder that someone is actually listening. Isn’t it true that, when we ask for forgiveness, we want it from real people? If God isn’t listening, then why confess to him at all? I did not need him for forgiveness, not when I could ask it from real people.
So, I scaled the breach. I decided not to believe in the Christian God.
My sins felt like they finally had weight, now that I was finally free of confessing to an intangible, unfelt God. The liberation was exhilarating.
I recalled all the times my parents thanked God’s hands for our food. If God isn’t there, then I do not have to thank his hands. Instead, I could thank my mother’s hands, which actually made the food. The hands with calluses where finger meets knife-handle, skin rough from years of dishwashing. Real hands. Tangible and visible, and there.
When the priest pulled me into the confession booth, I knelt and kept my eyes open. I reminded myself that I was not confessing to an invisible God or an eternally elusive gardener. I was confessing to Father Daniel, whose purple robes I could see behind the rattan wall. He was real. God wasn’t.
I tested the weight of his name on my tongue, the new heft of sincerely felt sins.
And I began, “Forgive me, Father Daniel, for I have sinned. My sins are pride, and fear, and anger.”
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Nik Yunque, 17, is a freshman student at the Ateneo de Manila University.