A QUESTION THAT REKINDLES

In the beginning, the elohim created skies and earth.

Welcome back.  Let's think about sin.  I gave up on sin long ago.  Having been raised in the Protestant tradition which proclaims that we are all fallen short of God's perfection, I learned that there was not a whole lot I could do about sin.  

Indeed, I am a great sinner.  I have no reason to ever believe that I can lord my way of life over anyone else. I can never say without falling down and laughing at myself that I know indubitably any answers to questions concerning God or how to make life sensible.

Like everyone else, I scratch and claw my way through the mettle ground of life.  Just by sheer luck alone, I make it through a day without wanting to retaliate with a clanging chain of unkind words.

Any who would emulate Jesus knows better than to be mean even when it is impossible to be kind.

Of course, I was raised to believe that sin is sinning, that is, sin is manifest in certain behaviors being deemed offensive to God. 

If only it were that easy.  I miss the days when I believed that piety was all God required of me. 

Cussing, drinking, dancing, playing cards, going to movies, going to R rated movies, wearing pants if you're a woman or a girl, listening to rock n roll, smoking weed would be a convenience now were I to measure my relationship to God by them.

Now, that I’m older, I’m too tired and busy to have the energy for all those pseudo-sins…except the pants of course, which do not apply to me.

The only behaviors that are offensive to God’s love are violence and neglect of our fellow humanity.  They violate our commitment to follow the golden rule.  They violate our commitment to obey the commandments urging us to love God and every single Homo sapiens on earth, even the jerks and the dummies.

There I go, being a jerk, and who's to say I'm not the biggest fool on this planet too?

What is sin, but that fog of life that keeps us from seeing our God of love through the eyes of faith.  This blindness affects how we see our fellow human beings.

There have been times in my life, and there are times in my life, when I am tempted to believe that I am not worth a hickory nut.  I imagine God is as displeased with me as I am.

I suffer from a chronic inability to love well.  My back bends beneath skies thundering with hostility, wrath, anxiety, and a sense of being lost with no takers in sight.

Then, I read these words:  "Come to me all of you who are struggling and burdened.  I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls."

These words, a salve everlasting that heals those places where sin sorely besets us, shoot straight out of our God of love’s heart.  

For I have managed to fumble and bumble my way through life.  I cannot think of a time in my life when I made any plans or set any goals that I worked toward.  I forsook the way of success which our culture proclaims is the all encompassing, smartly attired aim of life. 

I've always loved that spontaneity I lived, which has been the modus operandi of my life, but it has also irritated the hell out of me.  

Indeed, I envy planners and purveyors of preparation.  I once knew a man at the university I attended, a freshman like myself.  He wanted to be a dentist.

 After class, he went to the library.  I went to the Baptist Student Union and played spades for hours on end.  

When I left Chattanooga to attend seminary in San Francisco, it was not for the purpose of becoming a church scholar.  I wanted to venture away from the South.  

The same thing happened just before I moved to Atlanta.  I was living in San Juan Capistrano, California at the time when my best friend and church buddy asked me, "Why don't you move here?"  

I said, "Okay," and a week later I found myself living in the city where my favorite NFL and MLB teams played.  Atlanta was a lot of fun until I moved away.

My life has been a pick up and go kind of existence.  Wherever I am, I take long walks.  I talk to God.  I attempt to answer the question that God asks us all every time.  It is the same question Adam and Eve had to answer.  

"Where are you?"

"Right here, wondering where to go next."

"Don't fret.  I've got you covered."

“That’s just great.  Now what?”

“Keep living.  Keep talking.  I’ll listen.  You listen too.”

Adam and Eve’s question rekindles our relationship every time.  Especially when sin’s haze mystifies my every path.

Blessings…