between heaven and earth

The room was dark, and the candles on the makeshift altar lit dimly. Shadows overcast against the walls as retreat leaders tread warily around the room, handing out blank sheets of paper to retreatants, who knelt comfortably on the marble floors. Everyone sat still like the silence in the room, but past the glassy windows and into the dark of the night was the indistinct roar of engines along the roads. But that didn’t disturb the placidity within the enclosed four-walled room, filled with participants who repented, hoped to be forgiven and to grow their faith. 

I remember this memory so vividly. The room filled with the faint mustiness of the old dark wood hammered onto the ceiling, carrying a tinge of smoky sweetness from the burning incense and the waxy aroma of the melting candles. I was fiddling with the plastic, mass-manufactured black pen in my sweaty palms, uncapping and capping the pen over and over and over again as I waited patiently for the retreat director to break through the deafening silence. 

After what felt like a thousand years, he finally spoke. “I want you to confess,” he drawled out, his eyes scanning us through the dimly lit room. “About everything and anything onto that piece of paper. Treat it like a letter to God; spill everything holding you hostage against your will. Let God free you.” The words flow through the room like a hymnal. We gaze upon him, almost hypnotised. He gestured for us to start writing, and slowly, we picked up the pen and the paper.

The paper felt crisp between my fingers, holding the tip of the pen on it. The words flow in and out of my busy brain, everything’s tangled like my old headphone wires hidden at the bottom of the drawer. I tried to think about the things I’ve done, the ones I’ve regretted that feast at the back of my brain, or the version of myself that settles guiltily at the bottom of my gut. The Angel on my left shoulder, and the Devil on my right. Yelling into the abyss of darkness inside of my ears. 

A shaky breath left my mouth, my eyes closed as I tried to clear my loud mind, and then, I started writing. The messy ink and scribbled handwriting spilt endlessly onto the blank paper, as I wrote about all the sins I was guilty of. Everything I felt remorse for… The incidents I have covered with a lie, the countless Sunday masses I have missed, the immoral thoughts I have thought. At that moment, I felt the outline of the cross Jesus Christ had been nailed in, burning through the top of my skull. If I had paused and taken one quick glance at the cross pinned in the middle of the wall, I would be a hundred per cent certain that God was digging daggers through, not only my physical body but my metaphysical soul, too. 

Signing off with three dots, I remember feeling hot tears flooding down my cheeks. As my trembling hands tried their very best to fold the two A4 pieces of paper with precision. With haste, I put the folded paper, filled with secrets I would never tell anyone, in an empty envelope. Uriel Angela, I signed off at the back. “I would never ever open this. Ever,” I remember telling myself. I’m overcome with shame at the thought of it. 

The rest of the night was like a fever dream. 

I remember all of us were crying, holding tightly to our sealed envelopes, and never letting go. All of us were apologising, saying sorry to people we didn’t do any harm to. The director tells us that, “It’s normal. This is God washing away your sins and the negativities in your life. It’s normal; cry it all out, let your tears flow freely, and let God see your rejuvenation.” 

It was hot in that room that night; it felt as if we were surrounded by thousands of candles, melting onto us and becoming one. The choirs of canticles reverberated from the speakers through the wooden floors, vibrating to our very own flesh and to the by way of our conscience. Girls and boys, hand in hand, and arms interlinked, we swayed, and we wailed. The words of Psalms leave incoherently past our tongues. 

The next morning, when the dusk broke dawn, everyone acted like last night was nothing. Like we left the ghost of ourselves locked in that dimly lit room, with swirling smoke from the now blown and unlit candles, confined within the four-walled space. The sins, the confessions, the regret and the gloom, dwelled inside— hoping that they would vanish into the darkness. I remember feeling lightheaded, like high off of my rockers. 

The people who weren’t friendly with me suddenly were. The people who never cast at least one glance at me along the busy school corridors were suddenly speaking to me as if they knew me. Intonations rose along the sentences and in such cheery sing-songy enunciations. I was puzzled but, admittedly, didn’t question it. I loved that they noticed me. 

We went back to school like a changed person, like a higher power of holiness had touched us within. Striding along the school pathways with a glowing halo above our heads and angel wings developed from our shoulder blades. A sprinkle of holier-than-thou attitude plastered over, but fret not, as it didn’t last as long as a week. 

I never acted this way. Although, yes, it did feel like I was a changed person. But I never made it into a big deal, nor did I make a big spectacle of myself. I always found it weird when people acted like they were better than everyone else after attending a week-long retreat. Sure, it’s long enough for a reflection and to change one’s ways; however, if there’s one thing you ought to know about an All Girl’s Catholic High School, it will never follow through, and it’s gone as quickly as the sticky bit of a Post-it note.

Two years after the retreat happened and the saintliness that hovered over the retreatants, was now long gone— I stumbled upon the letter while I was clearing out my incredibly chaotic desk drawer, filled with scattered pins and inkless pens. A faint smile fluttered on my lips as I picked it up, racking the back of my brain as I tried to remember what I had written. I couldn’t remember it. 

Completely forgetting what I had promised myself then, I tore the envelope open like it was a normal, average, and very boring letter. And it was, in fact, a very normal, average and… Kind of boring, letter. My eyes scanned through the words and letters, and sentences that were scantily scrawled off onto the paper. Squinting at some of the illegibly written cursives. I was reading it from the outside like I was lucid dreaming and was watching myself read the incredibly vulnerable pieces that I’d written two years ago. 

All I can remember is being in disbelief as I tried to make sense of why I cried over something so little and something so irrational. (I still do, by the way. Sometimes.) 

I admit, I miss the calmness of a retreat. Summer last year, I visited the motherland, and on one of those trips, we drove deep into the forest where the religious sanctuary is nestled. I remember the sun breaking through the clouds, and shining against our skin. The sky was blue, and I could hear the birds chirping, and occasionally some crickets here and there. 

It was the quietest trip I’ve had when I was there. I could barely hear the very busy cars and motorways. 

For a moment, I thought I could drift away along the winds if I had sat down on the warm, grassy fields and closed my eyes. The idea of being secluded from the busy world was so tempting and so romantic. Sometimes, I believe it’s that sense of holiness that brings upon the tranquillity. Maybe it’s not the forest or butterflies fluttering about the bushes of flowers that surround the statue of Mother Mary, or maybe it is, or maybe it’s an accessory that helps bring the experience together.