Daily Email

Monday, February 4, 2019

Prayer: A Cosmological, Ecological and Communal Understanding of Sin


A Cosmological, Ecological and Communal Understanding of Sin

The first exercise is a meditation on the first (sin of angels), second (sin of Adam and Eve), and third (sin of one person) sins.  As a preamble let us use our imagination and travel back to the beginning, before creation and only God exists.   Let us remind ourselves that God is love; love that desires to share.  Thus, God creates out of love. 

God created everything in the universe – the galaxies, stars and planets; our earth, the plants, the animals, humankind – out of love.  Some call this ‘the original blessing’ and since everything and everyone is connected in this original blessing, every choice we make is somehow connected in and through creation.  And every choice needs to be made in such a way that everything and everyone is considered and respected.  In this way we keep ourselves in a living relationship with God, the world of nature, the socially constructed world, and other human beings.  We strive to live out of our own true nature by acting with compassionate love; acting as God acts.

Yet, sin entered the universe, into our world, and the original unity of creation was broken.  The original blessing became original sin.  Some forces said ‘no’ to their own true nature; to their relationship of love with God and with creation.  This is the first sin.  The second sin, the story of Adam and Eve is that of humanity saying ‘no.’  Moreover, to this day, each individual has the freedom to say ‘no’ to God, and this is the third sin.  Individualism is the false belief that, somehow, we are separate from created reality.  The relational and communal aspect has be suppressed, ignored or forgotten. 

When we think of sin in cosmological, ecological and communal terms, and when we understand how the relationships of the original creation were broken in the choice to say ‘no’ to God, we can better understand how every choice can affect the rest of creation. 

Guelph team 1998 revised Oland 2012

No comments:

Post a Comment