SIN

My cousin Carolyn sent a Kincaid e-picture to me. The picture was pretty and particularly captivating because I could see the rain falling. Under the picture was a commentary by the artist's young daughter. Apparently they were driving in the rain and the little girl observed that sin was like rain and God was like the windshield wipers wiping the sin away. When Kincaid noted that the rain kept coming his daughter implied that was just like life when she replied, "We keep on sinning and God just keeps on forgiving us." Kincaid thought his daughter's revelation was profound; I thought the little girl was tragically misinformed. Yes we sin but God can not forgive us.

Sin and forgiveness are concepts thought up by uninformed humans trying to explain life, a long time ago. I use the word sin here as a useful synonym for the concept of deviation from the ideal in my explanation of life. After evaluating the biological evidence it seems that to live as perhaps God intended is to reach out to the limits of our capacities, to others and to God. This is natural activity which is incidentally, the ideal reaction to the void. The ideal reaction has biological rewards the ultimate being, self-realization, life.

Although life is its ultimate reward, the ideal reaction to the void is not legislated by the law of human nature. It allows us to deviate from the ideal in either of two ways. We can try to fill the void, the absolutely restrictive reaction to it; or we can give up, the absolutely permissive reaction to the void. These deviations are both unnatural activities and there are biological punishments the ultimate being, self-destruction, death. In theory we can deviate from the ideal to either of the two absolutes; but in practice we deviate, or to now use its synonym, we sin by degrees. Our punishment, dependent on the degree to which we sin, is a measure of self-destruction. Indeed, the "wages of sin is death". 

God can not forgive any measure of self-destruction nor the contribution our individual sins make to the self-destruction of humanity. Look around!  Clearly we are all sinning and coming far "short of the glory of God". Asking for forgiveness can not wipe away self-destruction. Only by reaching out the limits of our capacities, to others and to God can we save ourselves from sin and self-destruction; and see perhaps "God's glory" in self-realization.
(see poem)