Wednesday, 12/25/2019
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- 617466db-43de-4335-9da9-4ce662747a7e
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Journal
Another successful Christmas, despite most of the house being down with some
sort of cold. Nabby and Asa have been sick the longest, but Silas came down with
a few days ago and Emma started feeling bad today.
It's been a whirlwind of activity the last few days. I spent most of Christmas
Eve making dinner. I pulled off a 10-course Russian feast. While they
traditionally would have served the meal on January 6, adhering to the Julian
calendar, I figured we could cheat a little and do it on our Christmas Eve.
I even had everything ready or underway enough to go to the service a church.
Ariel had a wonderful reading about the song of Mary, which Margaret elaborated
on in the homily. The idea that Mary was alone in both the mystery and fear of
virgin childbirth is oft overlooked. The service was a powerful reminder of what
it means to be faith-full and to be strong in the face of fear and doubt. I
couldn't help but reflect a little on my personal revelation from a few months
past. The necessity of a savior like Christ becomes almost undeniably powerful
when you think for a bit on the nature of original sin.
I think most people have their own idea of what original sin means. We have the
capacity to do awful things to one another, and often act on those impulses,
thus committing sins. But what if we turn that on it's head. Original sin, to
me, is not about our ability to commit sins, to act on impulse. Rather, it's the
fact that no matter what we do, sometimes it will be the wrong thing. All good
intentions, and we still have the preternatural ability to commit atrocities in
the world.
What are we supposed to do with that information? How are we supposed to
reconcile our desire to be good with the knowledge that no matter how hard we
try we will sometimes (often?) be irreconcilably bad? This is original sin,
then. And if you can make your piece with imperfection, so be it. But if you
can't, you almost require a savior who can make you whole somehow. Jesus fits
the bill pretty well in these cases. A cursory glance through the gospels
reveals that he was a pretty awesome guy.
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