We are Sinners all

What happens when philosophy meets experience? It looks like vague abstraction becoming not just reality, but pain or pleasure, nagging, unrelenting emotion, thought, doubt. When we know something in the truest sense, it is not an idea floating around in our heads, but visible reality, something we feel and can point to, something that inevitably changes our lives. I think one of the gravest and most real and important bridges between philosophy and our lives is Sin. I know, in the abstract, I am a Sinner (capital "S"), and our church programs growing up never seem to be able to tell us this enough. This is fine, and though not enough, it provides a helpful framework to understand when we see that we are sinners (lower-case "s"), when we see each individual sin. We see our lies and slander of a close friend, and though we know we deserve eternal death for it, we perceive it more real than ever in the distance and broken relationships that form from these sins. Some will know the blackness of sin from unwanted impregnation out of wedlock, or the anger and bitterness from harsh words.

In The Scarlet Letter, one of the main characters, an adulterer (I'll leave out the name in case you have yet to read it, though this will probably give it away anyway) captivates his audience because he confesses openly and passionately that he the worst of sinners (it seems every Puritan has a way of doing that), but he never tells them he is an adulterer. So long as he keeps sin in the abstract, he can never seek forgiveness, and Sin somehow becomes an admirable quality to his congregation when they see how righteous he appears to be, yet how readily he confesses to have some formless idea of Sin.

When "Sin" is shown to be "sin," it pulls out the ground beneath us, and we experience the cost of our depravity. Imagine the change in the idea and understanding of Sin in Adam and Eve when it turned from being forbidden the knowledge of good and evil into eviction from the perfect home in Eden, painful impregnation, changing their entire lifestyle to that of farmers, and death. Appreciate each nail beaten into Jesus' hands, the descent from Heaven, to earth, to Hell, the ultimate realization of sin in real, palpable form.

The Sinner's Prayer

I fell to my knees with eyes contrite
Looking to His Throne
And knowing myself a wicked man
I asked Him to atone:

“I know I am a Sinner, dark
Of the worst kind.
I speak the Heart’s native language,
And in this I die.

“The Wages of Sin is Death to All
For All have fallen short.
I am the Worst of Sinners all,
Condemned in His High Court.

“Yes, I am a Fallen Man
With Sin as Black as Evil
Faithless, fell, and needing Pardon,
His Beautiful Upheaval!”

And in response, my Truest Judge
Kicked me in the side
Till I spewed blood onto the floor
To show what I could not hide

In mirror red upon the floor.
I perceived two black, black eyes,
Two lies that claimed her as my own—
In mind together we’d lie.

I saw a rotting tongue confess
The slander of a friend
His face I twisted with my words
Struck it ‘til it bent.

I saw a scepter in my right hand
Held over those beneath—
With it I decreed their sin
And crushed them without relief.

Then black coins fell – those I had earned –
Thirty, all told, in count –
They struck me, bled me on the brow,
A ceaseless crimson fount.

Then knelt down my Truest Judge
And held me with his eyes –
His open hand became a fist,
His words, harrowing ice.

“A sinner, true, and here’s the cost—
I’ll strip you bare and cold
Beneath the Winter of Black Sin
And leave you there alone

“Except for my piercing eye,
A sword dividing soul,
Until you see this Wickedness
Is plague, is blood, is throe.

“Or you may turn out the light,
With polite chagrin
And kneel in your quiet room
In contrite, lofty Sin.”

And then I was alone, I felt,
Except for a cadaver,
Clothed in dirty, tattered rags,
To leave me never – never.