God's Splendid Obsession
This morning's reading in the Daily Light begins with Lamentations 3:40: Let us examine and probe our ways, and let us return to the Lord. I've been going through difficulties this past week that have forced me to probe my ways, and I’ve been feeling a heavy weight of guilt for what I'm discovering. I can't find any sins that are terribly uncivilized, but I am finding spiritual sins--the sins of pride--the worst kind. Pride is the great sin of the Devil. The sin that says, "I am God." The world doesn’t find pride sinful. This past week, in a mythology class, I had to teach high school students that the story of Adam and Eve is a story of the coming of age of human beings. God created them, then put a serpent in the garden to “tempt” them to grow up, to become adults, to leave the nest. Then God was angry, like a bad parent, when they chose to go their own way—to become their own persons. This interpretation is a doctrine of the ancient religio...