I don’t know why I seem to get the word "sin" under my skin. I guess it comes from seeing it misused so frequently. "Sin" is something bad. Religions tell you to stay away from it. Don’t drink, don’t fornicate, don’t do drugs and don’t use the Lord’s name in vain. Those are sins and they are bad. If you do them, then you are bad too. Don’t be bad. God hates bad people. If you are good, he will love you.
There are others for whom "sin" has become so tied to orthodoxy as to become meaningless. What do I care for this "Sin" of which you speak from your fundamental superstitious little perch? Your sin has no meaning to me. And of "sin" in its general sense? Well, let’s just live and let life shall we? Good – bad… it’s all relative. To each his own.
As usual, my personal opinion differs greatly from either of these viewpoints. Consider the following questioning of some omnipotent sort, someone to whom we look when we are unsure if what we have done is okay. Call it an inner voice, some sort of reverberation, a kind of internal therapist.
Us: Lord, have I loved enough?
Him: Why don’t you wish to love more?
Us: Oh dear God, have I been patient enough?
Him: Why don’t you wish to be more patient?
Us: Am I forgiven?
Him: Will you let yourself be?
Us: Did I do the right thing?
Him: Why do you think you’ve done the wrong thing?
I imagine it’s sort of like this therapy session. We ask those questions, but we really know the Truth. We can never love enough, we will never be patient enough, will never be able to completely accept forgiveness, and if we wonder if we’ve done the right thing, we probably haven’t.
So, "Sin" that thing that seems discrete, quantized, measurable – isn’t. It is immeasurable, a fabric stretching through all time and space in every direction. It is a condition of our very existence.
There is no such thing as "good enough." You will never be impeccable. You will never reach your potential. You will never fulfill your perfect design.
Everything short of that is, my friends, sin. Welcome to the club with an extremely inclusive membership.