This story caught my eye recently.

Frank Warren, a small business owner, began an experimental art project a year or so back: he distributed 3,000 blank, self-addressed postcards near his suburban Washington D.C., home. He left them at bus stops, in restaurants, and between the pages of library books, encouraging people to confess a secret and send them back to him.

Surprisingly, the confessions came—and came. People posting back the cards wanting to get something off their chest. Warren expected the project to end when the postcards ran out. The real surprise came, however, when completed postcards kept coming when he’d stopped passing them out. People started making their own postcards, and they started pouring in from not just America but around the world. Some began using pictures and collages, wedding invitations, or images from advertisements to better communicate their confession.

Today, Warren receives more than 400 postcards every week from people wanting to confess something. The project has turned into a book, a traveling art exhibit, and a website that’s received nearly 26 million hits.

Some of the confessions Warren is hearing include:

> A postcard with a black-and-white image of the twin towers on the front, with the words, "Everyone who knew me before 9/11 now believes I'm dead.”

> Another reads, “There are a million things I wish I had told you before you died. I’m sorry.”

> Another, a picture of a pink razor, says, "I've written my suicide note four times. And never followed through because I didn't like the way my letter sounded."

Not all the confessions are as tragic—one, a magazine cutout of strappy sandals, tells of plans to blow a paycheck on high heels.

After reading these very personal messages, Warren says he’s learned, I quote, “there are some secrets we think we’re keeping, but those secrets are actually keeping us…”

It amazes me sometimes how we stumble across experiences like these that only confirm the wisdom of the ages. The Bible, for instance, says much about confession. “Confess your sins to each other,” one verse says. “If we confess our sins to God He will forgive us,” says another.

The human soul longs to resolve personal wrong. And as Frank Warren discovered through a little alternative art project, confession can unchain us from the secrets that hold us captive.