{"id":7786,"date":"2013-12-02T17:03:32","date_gmt":"2013-12-02T21:03:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/?p=7786"},"modified":"2013-12-02T17:03:32","modified_gmt":"2013-12-02T21:03:32","slug":"never-quite-free-my-series-on-portrayals-of-penitence-concludes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/evetushnet\/2013\/12\/never-quite-free-my-series-on-portrayals-of-penitence-concludes.html","title":{"rendered":"“Never Quite Free”: My series on portrayals of penitence concludes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

with a look at the Mountain Goats, We Shall All Be Healed<\/em>. This piece has a couple lines I really like:<\/p>\n

One way to mistell stories of penitence is to envision penance as a linear process of restoration. You do a bad thing, you feel bad, you make amends (often in a way which involves saying ritual words like \u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d or doing something which offers an obvious symbolic parallel to your wrongdoing), status quo ante. There can be truly sublime portrayals of this kind of almost mathematical penitence\u2014think of the armor-falling scene from The Mission<\/em>, which was the very first thing I thought of when I first started working on this series\u2014but it\u2019s an oversimplification of the twisting, unpredictable paths of penance and redemption in the real world. We never do get back to where we started. And the strongest theme which has emerged in this series on portrayals of penitence is the possibility that penitence is usually impossible.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one reason it\u2019s appropriate to close with the Mountain Goats indie-rock album We Shall All Be Healed<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

more<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

with a look at the Mountain Goats, We Shall All Be Healed. This piece has a couple lines I really like: One way to mistell stories of penitence is to envision penance as a linear process of restoration. 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