These are not metaphors.
Now there's a metaphor. Or is it still a metaphor if it is a negative statement? If you had said, "These are not like metaphors", then that would be a simile, which wouldn't be a metaphor. :)
I might as well rant on:
3. A woman sought out a confessor of long experience. In her confession she recounted the behaviors that troubled her. She then began to detail how these behaviors seemed somehow connected with her experience of having grown up in an alcoholic home. At that point the grizzled veteran confessor reached out and, gently patting her hand, asked: “My dear do you want forgiveness or an explanation?”
Some people confuse confession and spirituality with therapy. Therapy offers explanations; confession seeks mercy and forgiveness.<<<
Or some confuse the providing of context with making excuses or needing therapy. Good thing God takes in all the factors. If a person is abused by others and/or his weaknesses purposefully exploited, then he shouldn't be ashamed to say that these abusers had a hand in his behavioral failings that need forgiveness and mercy. Allowing others to undermine proper decisions and to knock us off track such that we do stupid horrid stuff *is* a failure. That's not seeking excuses or explanation. Ignoring full context skips over this element and also gives abusers a pass.
Mercy is being gracious and understanding to a person who is hurting, for the fact that he is hurting. Not that complicated. How about just loving people and having compassion for them, without checking to ensure that they are sufficiently ego-less. Forgive the person for "wanting therapy" (or justification) in his retelling of his failures and transgressions, or don't assume a misguided motive in the first place. He just might respond to the love. That's one way to overwrite the past: superceed all the awful garbage and scrutiny with a simple "love your neighbor as yourself" attitude.
Perhaps this story/allegory is more about a woman who just hoped to trust a "veteran confessor", but he slammed the door with his patronizing pat. That'll teach her. There's a reason people followed the Messiah everywhere he went, crying out to him for mercy. He wasn't like the others. He isn't like the others.
Worldly wisdom needs to be given the boot.