Why sin is a bitch

An essay about what a miracle we are (and how we waste it)

Dear L,

Don Draper once said I hate to break it to you, but there is no Big Lie. There is no 'system.' The universe is indifferent.

With all due respect that's because he was using a telescope. Use a microscope and point it at a drop of water and you’ll find the universe cares too much — and that right now it’s trying to eat you.

But that's only if you point it away from your hand. Point the microscope a little closer to yourself and you find there are whole universes dedicated to keeping you alive. There are armies inside you with generals and soldiers and weapons* — by the trillions — fighting off the universe outside. There are oilers turning air into energy, garbagemen taking out the toxins and trash, miners breaking apart chunks of precious ore, warriors fighting off disease, truckers bringing food from one place to another — whole systems devoted to you seeing the beautiful and the ugly, to you tasting sweet things and sour things, to you hearing babies cry, or wolves howl, or waves lapping up against the beach.

Not to mention the hands — with god knows how many bones and ligaments and muscles — to do whatever you need them to do; the spine which shifts intelligence and sensation from the utmost extremities of this empire to the command center; the muscles which turn you into a tower of sorts, able to stand tall if you want or to curl you into a ball; the bellows which suck air in and push it out and steal life out of it; the sinuses filtering out poisons and leaving the precious resources; the eyes taking in rays of energy and projecting them into your consciousness; the ears measuring and dissecting an ocean and turning it into a variety of noises; the nose which finds particles too small for you to see or hear and even giving those a say — enough to make your whole being perk up and say, what the heck is that?

All of these callings and nations exist on their own, without your consent (or many times even your knowing): pumping and fighting and living and dying just to keep you — a conscious being of the highest order — alive for as long as it can.

This universe is the opposite of indifferent. We talk about a mother’s love, but here we have a million mothers looking out for us: beings with a sole, involuntary, united purpose. And that is to give us a chance to walk this earth, to soak it in, to dream, to fear, to love, to hate, to hunger and thirst and satisfy it with French toast and a tall glass of orange juice.

What you have to remember is that you're a miracle. You’re such a miracle that even if you gained 300 lbs and put on sweatpants and rolled through Walmart — whether on a scooter or just on the floor — you’re still more majestic than the sun, than the sky, more majestic than the Sistine Chapel. Even in a state of disrepair. Even if you’re a junkie, or a fool, or a big fan of Kim Kardashian.

And that's why sin nature is a bitch. Outside of whatever made us, we are the most miraculous beings we know of. And the crown jewel of this masterpiece is another universe in itself: a wild imagination ready to build up and tear down people, and places, and scenes, and feelings at a moment’s notice: a dreamworld of medicines and snake oils, marriages and rapes, mother’s love and crimes of war. And so often, instead of creating things equally beautiful to ourselves, or at least worthy of such a miracle, we use it to cheat others, to tear them down, to break them: to waste this gift on ugly things, on mean things, on stupid things — to dream of nasty things.

Michael Singer writes in The Untethered Soul,

[Y[our heart is one of the masterpieces of creation. It is a phenomenal instrument. It has the potential to create vibrations and harmonies that are far beyond the beauty of pianos, strings, or flutes. You can hear an instrument, but you feel your heart. And if you think that you feel an instrument, it’s only because it touched your heart. Your heart is an instrument made of extremely subtle energy that few people come to appreciate.

We are the generators, the composers, the judges of the tiniest vibrations of the universe. The big question — and the one God holds us accountable for — is, what kind of vibrations do we make? Are we creating whole universes in our souls that God loves? Or is He horrified by them?

I know that people can be beautiful. I'm not one of those Calvinists who thinks everything about us is disgusting. But there’s a moment when you recognize you’re a slap in God's face. We were made for so much more than this. And we throw it away every day, or make it ugly, just for the hell of it.

Yours,

-J

P.S. My own pet theory is that the universe inside us was walled off from the other universes on purpose. Like the Tower of Babel, God saw what we would make with what He gave us and He decided people were better off apart. Thus that gnawing feeling that you're misunderstood, that you can’t really explain yourself, that the dream you just had can't really be shared — and the relief you feel when you think something awful, and the person right in front of you is totally oblivious.

Someday we’ll be much different, I think. I'm not a prophet or an expert on the afterlife, but from what I've picked up from the scientists and the teachings of Jesus, God might allow us to connect with each other like He connects with us when people meet Him today: that is, mind-to-mind, and without any chance at misunderstanding.

For the moment, though, it looks like we’re on probation. And the reason is because we use our minds to create little hells — and if they were to break out, right now, before He can teach us that we need Him, and before He can change us, we would turn the greatest miracle on planet earth into its greatest catastrophe. We crave connection, and yet our separation from one another is the only thing making life on planet earth worth living.

Thus I don't take Matthew 7 as hyperbole. It’s reality. To hate your brother in your heart is murder; to look after a woman to lust after her is to commit adultery is a sermon for little gods in utero. I think we’re either going to be let loose, minor deities creating beautiful universes to live in, or we’re going to be caged up, or destroyed. And if we don’t have the light of God inside us, I believe we’ll beg God for the latter.

What do we do, then, when the light inside us dies and the whole soul goes dark? The answer to our predicament isn’t uptight rules like the Puritans, or a life of penance like the monks, or even to give up desire like the Buddhists. It’s a combination between grace and perspective. Like Moses’ snake held up in the wilderness, where we look determines what we become.

The gift is free. We have only to ask, seek, and knock.

*Take a moment here and really look at what’s going on inside you — a real miracle. The idea that this came from nowhere and was designed by nobody is too crazy to believe.

We do honor to ourselves when we do beautiful things. We do honor to God when we think beautiful thoughts.