It’s All Rot
I almost titled this, "Sin’s Rot". Even typos engage in synchronicity, I guess. We do tend to think of sin as involving "rotting" behaviors, do we not? It’s interesting, though, to note that the root of the word "sin" from the original Hebrew means "missing the mark".
Nothing more than a mistake, is the real bottom line here. No one burns in hell (I dare you to find any greater example of hell than the many possibilities that exist here on earth), no one is reduced to being lesser than anyone else. Like babies learning to walk, we fall down, we make a mistake, we "miss the mark", we sin. So what’s the big deal?
Infinite Stones
It does take a lot of chutzpah, to reveal my particular ethnic/religious roots, to accuse someone of sinning in the usually-understood sense of the word. Of course, as Jesus said, "Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone."
We would be hard put to find that person, and yet the world hotly behaves, and eagerly participates, in casting more "stones" than one could ever count, if we include more modern-day versions like, well, even all the way up to nuclear warheads . . . It’s a "he said/she said" times populations, that make up nations’ endless cycles of blame which compose all of recorded history, to be really specific. And when – where – will it end?
Sanctioned Violence
The center is sanctioned violence that is virtually infinite, endlessly harmful. The Dalai Lama advises us to seek to be harmless as the highest virtue we are capable of. Mistakes really aren’t the point here. Forgiveness – next step up, speaking of evolution – requires acknowledging wrongdoing, or making mistakes, and simply accepting that this has occurred.
Of ocurse this is a paradox, so we know we’re really in a spiritual ballpark here, because everything in the spiritual ballpark is a paradox. Can we stretch our consciousness enough beyond blame to state yes, there has been wrongdoing – mistakes – and I fully acknowledge that?
The Position to Create Miracles
Now we’re in the realm of responsibility, and when we know we’re able to respond, we are powerfully and fully present in the world. In this position we can create miracles, inspire ourselves and others, and authentically support the greater whole, which is always the greater good.
I noted another typo just now with the word inspire. I started to type it as sinpire, so I’m going to play with it a bit more. Fire can extinguish wrongdoing – it burns it away – so I think we’ere getting warm here (can’t resist the pun) speaking of tracking down the roots of blame (I believe the full term is "hellfire and damnation"). I guess we’re back – have we ever left it? – to burning in hell. The problem is, per the way this story goes, it goes on and on, forever and ever.
The Roots of Development
Here’s the real truth. When we are able to take responsibility through being fully present, which is to respond from heightened awareness, we can see and freely admit to making a mistake, understanding as well that we then can learn to correct it. We do know how to correct, remembering my example of how we learn to walk.
We crawl – this is development – we manage to stand up – we fall – we pick ourselves up and repeat, as long as it takes for us to learn to balance ourselves and take a step. Then there are two steps, and eventually there are many more.
Dare to Inspire
This hasn’t happened yet, according to recorded history, in spiritual terms. We stopped at blame and burning in everlasting fires with no development to follow. And note – the world is in terrible shape. We are not infants, even though we continue to act like it.
We live in critical times, times that loudly call for us to grow up, to dare to inspire ourselves to learn to live harmlessly with ourselves and one another, daring as well to admit our mistakes and determine how to do better, and better, and better, until we no longer miss the mark and can behave like compassionate, accepting human beings who acknowledge living in sacred, creating space fully dependant on each others’ best graces as the fullest expression of the divine.