sin

As a child growing up in the Catholic Church, I had a complicated relationship with sin. What I was taught every Sunday at Mass, knee bones crushing on the kneelers, was that sin, like the devil, like evil - like all the endless stories about who did what wrong - was bad, bad, bad. Do not sin. Because not if - but when you do - you must head to the black box at the back of the church, kneel down and wait for the screen to slide open: 

Bless me Father for I have sinned. Since my last confession I swung on the toilet stall door at Minnewashta Elementary and it broke off the hinges - I unscrewed the neighbor's outdoor Christmas lightbulbs and jumped on them to hear the popping noise they made - I did not raise my hand when teacher asked our catechism class who would be willing to demonstrate their belief in Jesus as much as those did in biblical times ….enough to put their head on the desk to be chopped off? (true story) 

Go to confession and tell Father what you did. He will absolve you if you say the three Hail Marys and the two Our Fathers. All clean. Done. Until next time. 

Sin was contractual. 

I recently read another take on sin. Richard Rohr says: 

"The false self is characterized by separateness. Jewish and Christian traditions call this state of disconnectedness "sin." When we're separated from our deepest being, we are in a state of sin or alienation. When we are disconnected from our true self in God, we look for various false and addictive way to fill our emptiness. The small or false self is who we think we are, but our thinking does not make it so. It is our identity created through culture, education, class, race, friends, gender, clothes and money…only the true self is eternal."

…and the kicker:

"We all suffer from a terrible case of mistaken identity."

I like Richard's take. The truth is: We didn't arrive on the earthly plane soiled, needing cleansing. That's the lie we are taught. The sin is that we believe we are separate. The sin is that we believe we are disconnected. 

What if we all stopped believing we are alienated from one another?

What if we stopped needing things to fill our emptiness?

What if we realized we are never separated from our own, deepest selves?