Image courtesy of Biblical Christianity

I almost feel that I should apologise for this blog. Not because of its potential content but because it seems utterly disconnected to the last five blogs I’ve produced which were reflections on life with a broken leg. I’m reminded of the Radio 4 programme, In Our Time , where Melvyn Bragg spends 50 minutes each week discussing a random collection of ideas. One week we’re listening to a history of Prostitution, the next hearing about Cave paintings in Argentina followed by Monet and the Impressionists the following week. There never seems to be any link between topics. My hope is that this blog will link with the “Hobbling” series. I leave that judgement to others. In my mind I know where I’m going! (Let’s see if your mind agrees.)

So, to sin. (Or should that be Sin, with a capital ’S”? Perhaps it depends on the nature of the thing in question.) Augustine of Hippo defined sin as “a word, deed, or desire in opposition to the eternal law of God.” Plenty of room there to go wrong “… a word, deed, or desire in opposition to the eternal law of God.” Humanity is measured against some divine plumb line and judged accordingly. Reading through the Deuteronomic laws it’s hard to see what moral purpose is served by some of them. They often seem more “political” than “spiritual” designed to define the Israelites as different to their pagan neighbours. It is as much about cultural identity as religious or moral purity. The whole tenor of the Old Testament is put together to point to the coming of the Messiah in the person of Jesus, the sinless Man / God whose death on Calvary finally freed humanity from Sin. The free gift of Salvation is now ours (so long as we don’t look too closely at the small print.)

Is this really what our lives amount to? A perpetual struggle not to offend a divine being who can, at times, seem capricious and irascible. “Behold I was shaped in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me.” (Psalm 51:5) was one psalmist’s view of his status and value. My own mother would have been mortified if someone made this suggestion to her about my birth and conception. I was conceived in love and shaped by care and concern.

So, how might we consider “sin”? (Here’s a possible link to “Hobbling”.) The theologian Paul Tillich asked the rhetorical question “Why should I not throw away my dignity as a person , even destroy myself as a person?” His answer should be plastered on every billboard in every city, He writes “From the point of view of the holy, we do not belong to ourselves but to that which we come from and to which we return – the eternal ground of everything that is. This is the ultimate reason for the sacredness of the person and, consequently, for the unconditional character of the moral command not to destroy our essential being which is given to us and which we may disregard and destroy”

That’s a lot to absorb.The proverb “To thine own self be true” says something similar – although less well. Tillich is offering is a high view of humanity. We are, at best, grounded in the Divine. Connected to the Wholly Other. (In psychoanalytic terms we have Good objects inside us.) This is the point of connection between Hobbling and “God”. In my blogs on hobbling I described two meetings with two of my patients and their responses to the work. One was able to let me in – to internalise me as a Good object whom they could draw upon when necessary. The other was unwilling to grow or change.

I think it was Primo Levi who observed that those who managed to survive in the camps were those who still retained their humanity. Who, even when they had nothing, were willing to give to their fellow prisoners out of that nothingness. If they had half a piece of bread, they would share that half with someone who had none. (Truly an example of creation ex nihilo.) These men and women were still able to connect to the Ground of their Being. It kept them alive spiritually as well as physically.

I’ll make some more links between Sin and Hobbling in another blog, This one already has enough words.