Author Barbara Brown Taylor describes the suffering we experience when we live from a sense of disconnection:
Deep down in human existence, there is an experience of being cut off from life. There is some memory of having been treated cruelly, and—a little deeper, perhaps—the memory of having treated someone else cruelly as well…. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of reaching for forbidden fruit, of pushing away loving arms, of breaking something on purpose just to prove that you can. Deep down in human existence there is an experience of doing whatever is necessary to feed and comfort the self, because there is no one else to trust, no other purpose to serve, no other god to follow.
For ages and ages, this experience has been called sin—deadly alienation from the source of all life. By some definitions, it implies willful turning away from God. By others, it is an unavoidable feature of being human. Either way, it is a name for the experience of being cut off from air, light, sustenance, community, hope, meaning, life. It is less concerned with specific behaviors than with the aftermath of those behaviors. There are a thousand ways to turn away from the light, after all, with variations according to culture, century, class, and gender. The point is to know the difference between light and darkness, and to recognize the pull when it comes.
Though we may make choices out of a sense of disconnection, we can also choose to return to the original blessing of God’s love:
Repentance begins with the decision to return to relationship: to accept our God-given place in community, and to choose a way of life that increases life for all members of that community. Needless to say, this often involves painful changes, which is why most of us prefer remorse to repentance. We would rather say, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I feel really, really awful about what I have done” than actually start doing things differently.…
“All sins are attempts to fill voids,” wrote the French philosopher Simone Weil. Because we cannot stand the God-shaped hole inside of us, we try stuffing it full of all sorts of things, but it refuses to be filled. It rejects all substitutes…. It is the holy of holies inside of us, which only God may fill….
I do not believe that sin is the enemy we often make it out to be, at least not when we recognize it and name it as such. When we see how we have turned away from God, then and only then do we have what we need to begin turning back. Sin is our only hope, the fire alarm that wakes us up to the possibility of true repentance.
Reference:
Barbara Brown Taylor, Speaking of Sin (Cowley Publications, 2000), 44, 46–47.
Image credit and inspiration: Balint Mendlik, untitled (detail), 2022, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. An arrow missing the center reminds us that sin is not our essence. We may be momentarily disconnected from our true aim, but still able to center the next shot.
Story from Our Community:
Reading Josué Perea’s story of musica divina made me cry. In my own journey, I have often found hip hop to be such a source of inspiration and connection to God. My presentation to the bishop for my place at theological college was entitled “Let them have hip hop,” talking about teenagers and faith. I discovered, as Josué did, that the established church isn’t always open to the idea of grace in unexpected places. But God is in all things, especially hearts that are searching.
—Julia B.
