For redefinition, I was thrown back to myself, to my inner knowing… Marilyn Sewell, Cries of the Spirit

The Authentic Voice Project: Week 19 (Full Moon)

S is for Sin

Next to Evil, I think Sin has to be my least favorite word.

Sin… Born black with it. The inherent human state of it. Living in it. Redeemed from it.

It’s just another word shouted, whispered, preyed upon us in an attempt to keep us in line. To keep us in a state of fear. Afraid of ourselves. And our wicked ways. But look at a baby. A child has to be taught not to love. Love is the natural state.

I ask you, how can a person ever grow, foster their own strengths, move towards their inherent creativity if they believe every step in this “sinful” world could bring wrathful judgement upon their head? The answer is, they can’t. Fear is a stop sign. It is a shut door. And belief in a “natural” sinful nature is a stagnant pool with no life vest.

Yes, all humans have the potential to do some very awful things, but it is not inevitable and more than not choose to do the loving thing. It isn’t faith in a god that prevents the majority of us from slowing down to avoid hitting a dog walking across the road or prompts us to help out an elderly neighbor who needs her driveway shoveled. And (except in very rare cases) no one chooses to live a certain way because they enjoy being hated and rejected.

True “sin” to me is an action, not a state of being. Sin is killing this earth in the name of money. Sin is denying others basic human rights. Sin is living in fear of “sinful” people and blindly following external authorities who proclaim they have The Truth or The Answer. Sin is denying one’s own abilities – the natural creativity with which we were born – and instead choosing to live in an inauthentic and joyless, thankless life.

If Sin is denying the Divine, then OK, I agree. We are all divine, all points of light in this web of life on Mother Earth. Denying this divinity in ourselves separates us from the earth, nature and each other, and when there is no connection, there is death. Death of Soul. Death of Spirit. Death of Love.