If only

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
— Alexandre Solzhenitsyn

Don’t judge

Contrition is no fun

Reading today from A History of Sin: Its evolution to Today and Beyond by John Portmann, who has this to say about sin fatigue:

“Worshipping God takes time, just as repenting for sin does. Time gets increasingly scarce in the modern world, and atonement fatigue creeps into the picture. Traditional Jews read aloud from the Torah at least three times a week, and good Muslims face Mecca five times a day to pray. What do ordinary (Christian) believers have to show for themselves, other than some bumper stickers and lip service to ‘family values’? Part of the Western sin fatigue stems from the inconvenience of contrition. Saying we’re sorry for something we really wanted to do gets in the way of our enjoying life. Further, one of the difficult questions sin poses is why people regret it so deeply——is it to show love for God or to protect ourselves from a more severe punishment?”

Timeless truths

As I begin the foundation portion of my thesis work on homo incurvatus in se (a 5th-century phrase coined by Augustine that describes sin as “man turned in on himself” and which I believe allows for a powerful new understanding of sin in the 21st century) I thought I’d share the occasional gem. This one from Augustine’s City of God:

“For avarice is not a fault inherent in gold, but in the man who inordinately loves gold, to the detriment of justice, which ought to be held in incomparably higher regard than gold. Neither is luxury the fault of lovely and charming objects, but of the heart that inordinately loves sensual pleasures, to the neglect of temperance, which attaches us to objects more lovely in their spirituality, and more delectable by their incorruptibility. Nor yet is boasting the fault of human praise, but of the soul that is inordinately fond of the applause of men, and that makes light of the voice of conscience. Pride, too, is not the fault of him who delegates power, nor of power itself, but of the soul that is inordinately enamoured of its own power, and despises the more just dominion of a higher authority.” (City of God, Book XII, ch. 8))

How long have you been walking around with the same old ideas

“Most people think only once in their lives, usually when they are at college. After that, their minds are made up, and their decisions, utterances are endless repetition of views that have in the meantime become obsolete, outworn, unsound. This applies to politics, scholarship, the arts as well as social service. Views, just as leaves, are bound to whither, because the world is in flux. But so many of us would rather be faithful to outworn views that to undergo the strain of re-examination and revision. Indeed, intellectual senility sets in long before physical infirmity. A human being must be valued by how many times he is able to see the world from a new perspective.”
Abraham Heschel in Moral Grandeur and Spiritual Audacity (20)

(excerpted from recreativespace.tumblr.com)