I need the playbook.



 

This morning, in my very early quiet time — my retrospective time — I was thinking about Sin. Yes. Sin. The kind with a capital S.

I wonder about it, sometimes. Because, mostly, I do not understand it. Not in the least. Oh. Let me clarify. I understand what “man” has written about it. I am quite familiar with the Bible, and The Ten Commandments and all.

As a note of reference, I grew up in the Catholic environment. We went to Mass every day. Every day. Up until I went to High School. Then it was 2x a week. We had Religion classes and Catechism classes. We studied passages from the Bible. I am fairly well versed in the definitions of Sin which have been written down by humans in the Bible, and otherwise.

But mostly, they don’t make sense to me. There must be loopholes, is all I can figure. There must be some “Secret Guide to Sins & Their Rankings.” For instance, I know people who think Homosexuality is a Sin, because it says so in the Bible. But those same people don’t seem to mind working on Sundays. Think of all the people with tattoos that are going straight to hell. Leviticus 19:28 reads: “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”

I’d hate to crash and burn for the times I used a Sharpie to remind myself of something. On my palm. Yes. It all seems to be a very sticky wicket, to me.

Truly, there are some very dark people in our world. Like Hitler. Idi Amin. Genghis Khan. Stalin. Nero. On and on. Or the likes of Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy. Or, these kids with guns, in gangs, all across the United States, who kill people randomly on a daily basis.
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Children of God, all of them. But there is some pretty major sinning going on there, by the standards I mentioned above. If they say “I’m sorry,” are they brought back into the fold? The Prodigal Son says they do.

We live in a culture where the concept of sin has become entangled with hapless arguments over right and wrong.

Last night, we babysat Mary’s grandsons. They are not mine, by blood. And there is that. Regardless, I think those boys are completely precious. They are such beautiful little souls, filled with love and light. I worry about them, in this world of ours. Sometimes, I wish I could put a big bubble around them. Protect them.

In fact, the all of it makes me sad, this world. These times.
The grayness of the lines between who is right, or wrong. And why.

Now that I think of it, I’d like that big bubble for all of us. Because we are all in it this soup.

The Apostle Paul says in Romans 3:23: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

And by those written standards, I suppose, the finger-pointing should stop. All the way around. Just maybe, the compassion should inch its way in. Perhaps, the phrase we need: “It is my glass house, but those are not my rocks.”

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“Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you.”
― Shannon L. Alder

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“Compassion is the chief law of human existence.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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“To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

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