A blast of guilt and shame
I’m on vacation in my home country of Panama. Today my girlfriend and I went on a walk and I wanted to show her the “Golden Altar” at the Iglesia de San Jose here in the Casco Antiguo section of Panama City.
The golden altar was in a church and in 1671 the pirate Henry Morgan (the same one from the spiced rum bottles) pillaged and burned Panama City.
The altar was not stolen because a priest painted it black and told him that the gold had already been stolen.
And in a very ballsy move- the priest asked Morgan for money to help rebuild the altar. Legend is that after laughing, Morgan ended up giving the money to the priest.
Later, the original site of Panama City was abandoned and moved a few miles west and the altar was moved to a new church that was built in 1673.
351 Years Later
We walked into the church (thankfully it had air conditioning)-it’s a working church so I was trying to be respectful and take pictures at the same time.
All of a sudden I felt a pressure in my belly that almost took my breath.
No, it wasn’t bad sushi. I felt a surge of anxiety and guilt. What the heck?
Oh yes. I was in a church. A Catholic Church for that matter. Of course!
I’m feeling so much guilt and shame now.
Those of you that know me know I’m always trying to find the core reason for everything. It’s usually having to do with emotion.
This was a great opportunity to work on myself and maybe clear up another emotional hurdle.
I let Christi know that I was ok, but I’d be spending a few minutes sitting in a pew doing some deep breathing techniques and tapping.
I sat there until I felt the wave of something letting go and didn’t have that “feeling” anymore.
After that I quietly got up and resumed taking pictures.
I’ve done enough work on myself to be able to recognize when something is affecting me.
It’s like a “software glitch” in the brain that can be corrected fairly easily. I’m hoping at some point I won’t have any trauma to heal. Maybe when you run out of stuff to work on, that’s the day you ascend.
Anyway, we carried on with our day and it ended up being a fantastic day.
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Here’s some more pics of the inside
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