Please notice this...

[sjcarpediem]

Clear, 17C

I am usually the first to preach not to keep secrets. Well, I've realized that I have one. A really big one. A guilty, horrible one.

I once lied about my identity; and benefited in ways that money cannot equal ever, under any god or heathen, while someone, somewhere, must have suffered. It doesn't matter how naive or knifing or plausibly deniable it initially was; or how or when I realized the fact and the weight of the lie I told.

The fact is that I told it and I benefited from it. I discovered and experienced and when I understood that I had been given access to that only through a lie I tried and tried to make the lie a truth. In part of doing that, I see now that I actually perpetuated it.

Until I also understood that it was once a lie and would always be a lie; no matter what happened as a result.

We all tell lies. We all make mistakes; and though I usually feel like I've made more than my fair share of big ones, the fact is that I have--almost as a rule--accepted, even sought, bearing full responsibility for them (even if I have regretted it, later, or known that I would).

The lie is not my secret, nor is the mistake of it.

My secret is that I have never atoned for my dishonesty. The worse of it is that I have meanwhile been praised and honored for being honest.

That part on how I gained from it is only to emphasize to what degree atonement is necessary.

The fact of the matter is that I have kept this secret because I did not know how to deal with the repercussions of letting it out.

Well.

I'm done with that.

I'm sorry to everyone who was tricked and misled into believing things about me that aren't true (though to be fair and honest to those who've joined me only in the last five years, you had already missed my error by then). I know that now you know I can't be trusted because there's no way to sort the fact from fiction. You must always wonder, now, if I am who and what I say I am or seem to be.

If I was a decent person I'd never tell another soul--and that's what I thought I was trying to do for the past five-plus years. Maybe I'm just being weak and taking "the easy way out" by outing myself after the recent chain of disappointments and challenges and cries in the night for support of some kind....

But I realize I was wrong then and am, now, and always will be until I've earned and been granted forgiveness from the ones I've wronged. I don't enjoy being wrong and the longer it goes on the more people I'll need to apologize to and beg forgiveness from. I'm damming this polluted stream.

So I'm starting, here.

Actually, that's another lie... I've already started somewhere else. The plan is to start at the outside, with the least affected and work my way in to the ones I'm aware of harming most directly.

If you want details or to harangue me or de-flist me or try to exact penitance or other explanation; I'll be leaving this entry public, and screening replies in case of any foolishness. The point is that your comment is between you and I unless you request otherwise.

Comments

[bowtomecha.livejournal.com]

wow. i need to figure out this one. i believe i've known you longer than 5 years and i dont think ive picked up on this. i dont think. the only thing that comes close is that one family thing that still has me scratching my head. outside of that nope no idea.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

It has something to do with family.

When I was still at Tulane I first went to Israel under the pretense of being Jewish. At the time I remembered being told some story that I thought was proof enough and retold it, though I didn't really care if it was true or not. I realized pretty soon it wasn't legal. I could have backed out, then. But I was curious, greedy and selfish and didn't.

Start around November 2001, I think it's tagged "roadmap to stephi". I'll try to track it down.

[bowtomecha.livejournal.com]

i was also thinking it could be that. i was reading some things about israel and how they only allow marriages between people of the same faith or rather people that dont marry outside of their faith and it led to more articles on how much privilege you can get in israel if you are jewish. Youre the only jewishy person i can think of and wondered how much of a task it would be to prove that youre jewish.

doesnt bother me in the least though. you at least were committed to it. half the people i know try to say that they are royalty through a cherokee princess. i'm part cherokee and i actually did the work researching that part of me. i have some mixed feelings about the cherokee though. i'm beginning to think that a cherokee descendant might have a better chance of being directly related to a slaveowner than a descendant of a white southerner. meh.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

According to Jewish law (halacha) a person is Jewish through the maternal line, or halachic conversion [usually comprised of education by a reputable rabbi and community, a hearing in a beit din--rabbinic court--which includes the giving of a Hebrew name, and immersion in a ritual bath (mikveh)]. You come out of this process completely Jewish, a Jew-by-choice; as such, it's a little more than simply sad if you then go on to desecrate the religious laws--those who haven't had the choice are given some more leeway [although there is a delightful argument in Talmudic (oral law) tradition that every individual as well as all of humanity is given and was given the choice of existing or not...]. You cannot be Jewish otherwise.

As for proving it : My mother was raised a Roman Catholic, that's what my mother's mother said she was, and I can't find out anything about my mother's mother's mother. Because of the time and various other things, it is possibly plausible (in fact likely) that my maternal grandmother is covering something up. Of what that something is, I have no solid idea. All of my requests for details are completely ignored, as if I haven't made them. Proving the matter would require rabbinic documentation of at least one of these women or their mothers, but this is not typically available in cases where the woman has renounced or otherwise given up or left the community (for whatever reasons) and especially if the women have been out of and separated from the community for several generations and the Rabbinic Authority in Israel uses ketubim (marriage contracts) for their proof (so your mother--not your mother's mother--would have to have left the community after her marriage--meaning she was most likely at least partially raised in the Jewish tradition) at least this was the case when I was researching it. one change, though, in regard to converts is that the Israeli Authority now recognizes certain Conservative conversions (they still include mikvot, but their interpretation and practice of some religious law is considered less stringent than Orthodoxy) where before they had only counted Orthodox ones.

Perhaps my attitude in explaining this is too ambiguous. The law clarifies that in the case of doubt, one cannot and does not assume in favor of legality unless that doubt is indeed compelling in which case the question is brought before a rabbi (who is basically a religious lawyer ; being a rabbi means you have sufficiently studied the necessary texts and commentaries to sufficiently and adequately lead a community, to answer their questions, to preside over their cases, and to guide their observance of the law, and if not to discern when you cannot do so safely and to know the question to then put before a more learned rabbi). This is the point : doubting something doesn't make it true.

About your Cherokee puzzle : can't a slaveowner also be a white southerner?

[bowtomecha.livejournal.com]

yes a slaveowner can be a white southerner. i was just stating that i believe that most people of cherokee descent have a better chance of being descended from a cherokee slaveowner than southern whites have of being a descendant of a white slaveowner. mostly because there actually werent all that many white slaveowners in comparison to non slave owning whites in the south to begin with, plus the cherokees were in smaller numbers yet were known to have slaves a hundred years before their scattering. with the idea in mind that they most likely had most of the same common ancestors multiple times in their recent history (small communities tend to have greater chances of having one ancestor appear multiple times, say a 4th great grandfather also as a 5th or a 3rd grandfather somewhere else across multiple lineages, the result of distant cousins intermarrying) so they would have a better chance of being that much closer to the slavery issue than many southern whites. not that it should matter. but i think it will in the future since repriations from an indian nation might be easier to get than from the national government itself and what with the cherokees kicking out most members of slave descent recently it could at some point go that way.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. I read your clauses incorrectly. Sorry!

Ahh... so they're targeting tribe members of slave descent... I hadn't put it together.

Isn't that some kind of ethnic cleansing/genocide; except instead of murdering the people physically you murder them socially (and I don't mean popularity contests, I mean to their social systems, e.g., the tribe)?

[desertum-rosa.livejournal.com]

what was the lie? Even those who are impecably honest make mistakes and lie at some point or another. I've lied simply by thinking the person said something and going with it, finding out later it was something rather different.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

I'm talking about when I said I was Jewish so I could go to Israel.

[earthbound01.livejournal.com]

To what degree were people harmed?
What kind of atonement are you thinking of?

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

As far as I know nobody was physically harmed. Certainly, I think it hurt the rabbi most, since I'm sure he knew but didn't say anything. I think I owe him the most; admission that I knew what I was doing and I knew/know that it was wrong and genuine remorse, something to make it legal in his faith though I'm not sure what...

It probably doesn't matter to him and he's probably forgotten all about it and me--which is another thing I'm a little curious about, is if I can do it without making it selfish. If he doesn't remember then to bring it up would be like doing it all over again. But if he does remember, then it must have been a more serious transgression than I understood it to be and maybe there's really no way that I can adequately apologize (in which case, trying might compound it).

I am seeking advice from an authority on the matter in terms of what to do in that regard since it is a religious issue. Though I don't believe anyone on my flist was directly harmed or affected, it still existed and it's still there and whether they realize it or not, they deserve my atonement and the opportunity to either be angry or to let it go.

[earthbound01.livejournal.com]

I guess I kind of thought you were Jewish, but I didn't really feel one way or the other about it.
I'll tell you a story. My aunt for some reason thinks Hungarians and Gypsies are the same thing somehow, which is terrible, because her mom (my grandma) was Hungarian. I don't think anybody knew about this misunderstanding she had been harboring, and when my grandma passed away, it was this aunt who made arrangements with a church for the funeral.
So I think almost everyone else was bewildered when the pastor kept calling my grandma a "gypsy woman".
Maybe there's more to this story than I know about, because I've heard stories of mixing of this and that, or stealing of babies, but from what I understand, she was a woman from Budapest and a good Magyar family.
Still, it was a really good reflection on her life, if a bit culturally inaccurate.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

It has been said that gypsies stole babies and sold them. My mother always teased me that she bought me from gypsies--though she never threatened to sell me to gypsies for not behaving until I was much, much older and could fully realize she was not serious. "Gypsies" are also nomadic Romanians, and groups often travel through Hungary. Perhaps your aunt is not confused... its a nice story, though.

As for my own source, it's something I've always been interested in, and for quite a time was out to either prove or disprove. I've gotten very far back on a number of branches, but not the relevant one--my mother's mother's mother is where that one ends, with nary a detail or clue, and my mother's mother isn't talking although I've asked both generally and specifically many times. She told my mother and her siblings growing up that they were Roman Catholic, so unless I can uncover something absolutely kosher (forgive the pun)--which is undoubtedly impossible in this situation--it is not proper to suspect anything other than what she has maintained.

I've had a few forays with conversion. I stopped when I realized how hypocritical it was, especially since I was (and am) still at least somewhat unwilling to go "all the way" in full and utter observance. I respect and admire the system and the faith and have very much reveled in the community it creates and nurtures and still very often wish I could count myself a member of it; but, if it was meant to be it would be and maybe one of my challenges is to accept that disconnection. I console myself that this way my 'soul' at least is not besmerched by violating the sabbath.

[ruakh.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'd wondered about that. FWIW, seeing as you're coming clean about it, it doesn't bother me. I realize that doesn't help you much, though, as I wasn't someone affected by it. :-/

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[averagesmartguy.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* If there weren't some kind of benefit to be gained from lying, there wouldn't be much benefit to it at all then, would there. Regarding atonement I'll leave that one up to you cos I personally feel that that's an individual matter.

Regarding other parts of the post though, it seems like you're affected by what's referred to as "all-or-nothing" thinking, among perhaps a coupla other forms of flawed thinking. For but one example:

The worse of it is that I have meanwhile been praised and honored for being honest.

Just because you've been dishonest with regard to one thing doesn't necessarily mean that you are therefore a complete and utter lying sack of shit. I'd be willing to wager that when you've been complimented on your honesty it's been for times/situations when you really have been honest. I don't really see the point to discounting that and selling yourself short personally, unless you've got some kind of masochistic tendencies which you sincerely believe help you to be a better person or whatever. If it's working, then hey, godspeed and all that. I'd pose the question first though.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

It's not that I'm all-or-nothing, it's that if I'm going to do something I want to do it as completely as I am capable. I'm not likely to be capable of "all", but coming in short of what I think I am capable of is disappointing, to say the least, and yeah I might beat myself up over it a bit but I think that combined with the fact that I just don't learn until a situation is beyond completely fucked that I shouldn't be easy on myself about it, either--since I'm obviously too easy-going in general. There's enough laxity in the world towards things that hurt and damage that I don't need to add to it.

You're right that when I have been praised for being honest I was, and I was made no less honest in those moments because of this; but considered in the larger picture I think it dings.

[jemvla.livejournal.com]

i said this to someone before:

nobody should care about your guilt, only what you do with what's left...

you don't want people's pity, and you don't wanna waste time, so what's the wait?

is it a love of drama? fear of the unknown that only you can create?

if you have caused suffering, make up for it now.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

This is already an old post, and I've long since taken care of the problem to my satisfaction (at least for now...); but good advice! Thanks!

[jemvla.livejournal.com]

a related topic... i was thinking about why it can be hard for a person to effectively show they are sincerely sorry (if they are indeed sorry...) as an offering to the 'wronged' person. it can also take a while for the other person to also recognize the sincerity, to heal (ie. they may or may not have been suffering for some time), or to be ready to forgive (if they haven't already...). every situation is different, but the basic message is the same. what do you think are some of the main roadblocks for the person who hasn't apologized to come forward, and what are some of the most effective ways to honor the other person and apologize?

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

Remorse over the time it has taken for them to (a) realize their transgression, (b) collect the courage to apologize. Also embarrassment that something is still so important to them that they feel the need to apologize when the wronged party has possibly forgotten. Etc.

[peanutxpeanut.livejournal.com]

What I need to know is, are you still in Kawanoe? Because I'm in Niihama and I have a car.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah...

I'm really sorry, but, how do we know each other?

[peanutxpeanut.livejournal.com]

Maybe from some LJ community. You added me because you were moving to Shikoku.

[sjcarpediem.livejournal.com]

Oh... Right!

Hmm.. well, yeah, I'm still in Kawanoe. You don't have to go out of your way, or anything, though. Thanks!