Generosity of Spirit

I just read a great book by Dietrich Bonhoeffer - "Life Together." Boenhoeffer was a part of the Confessing Church of Germany, a church that stood in opposition to the German Church who accepted and embraced National Socialism of Adolph Hitler during the 1930's and 40's. Before and during Hitler's rise to power, Boehnhoeffer was a pastor and a founder of a seminary at Finkenwalde. In the seminary, he began an intentional community ommunity called (and this is a translation) "The Brother's House." Life Together is a guide and rule for community and outlines some of the expectations, needs and requirements for healthy Christian Community.
One of the chapters that has gnawed at my mind is his chapter on Confession. One of the basics of confession that he asserts is that we must name our sins out loud to one another in order to begin healing the rift- the separation from God that the sins have caused. When I first read this, I had my basic Episcopalian aversion to this idea of Sin and confession, in that it seemed kind of severe. I pictured these harsh, uptight Calvinist types speaking German and sternly muttering their grievances and errors to one another.
Boenhoeffer believes, as do I now, that speaking our sins to one another in confession in order to seek forgiveness from God (first) and then one another, is of the utmost importance. Otherwise, as he puts it, we run the danger of just "praying to ourselves." Practically speaking, I have tried practicing this "speaking my sins" with my wife and life-partner first off before anyone else. I will admit right now that I do not do this as much as I can nor have I spoken all of them. In fact, if she ever reads this, my beloved bride will probably scoff and wonder when I EVER did this (but I know I did). I tried the experiment on my common sin of grumpiness (which, I have conjectured, translates into pride, but that is another entry). I said to her, " I was grumpy with you earlier and I should not have been and I am so sorry." Then, I took it to God and asked for forgiveness for being impatient and unkind and uncompassionate. This may sound like hooey, but I really felt forgiveness in a new way when I practiced this "Finkenwalde" form of confession.
Prayer is also about how we live, I have learned. I remember from my "Jesus Freak" days as a youth, I liked a singer named Keith Green who had this great song called "Make my Life a Prayer." It went like this

Make my life a prayer to You,

I want to do what you want me to,

No empty words and no white lies,

No token prayers, no compromise,

Using confession like DB tells us to in Life Together feels like life as prayer. I have noticed a ping-pong like pattern of prayer to life to prayer and it seems like we should move toward the two merging together. Prayer and life often seem isolated from one another. I crack open my Book of Common prayer once to twice a day on average, and many days (especially lately) it seems rote. The kids from our church went to Cayman Islands and did prayer 4 times a day. Most of them had an eye-rolling, "Oh it was something we had to do" attitude about it that I have often felt with my BCP, candle and early morning, solitary prayer service.
The isolation of the morning prayer alone, though, has moved me to unisolate it through things like the "Finkenwalde Confessional" (my term) of Bohnhoeffer. Both acts, in of themselves and alone, lead to empty stabs at piety. I sense a tension between the two, keep doing both of them, and this tension, I think, is God's voice.
It's like something else that occured to me today during the Eucharist I attended at a small church in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I noticed for the first time the words "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again." We spend so much time trying to rationally defend, describe, convenantize, and make tangible those three assumptions that run to the very heart of Christianity and we always, inevitably, fail in the attempt.
I laughed when it hit me that that is why they call it a mystery. We can't figure it out with our heads, can we? It runs beyond our reductive, science-clad, rationally equipped brains.
I don't know why confession like DB recommends works for me, moves the separating agent of Sin out of my life in a more complete way and allows God to fill the hole shaped like her with her love instead of my notions of what that should be. I love the "mysteries of faith", but I most of all love the fact that we are given the gift of forgiveness from God. We can pray the "token prayers" in order to be led to make our lives, how we spend our time and energy, prayers as well and do what God wants us to do instead of what we will.