Imagine to Remember

In many languages the etymology of sin is derived from an archery term. A sin is to miss the mark. A sin is not only to do what one should not, but also what one fails to do that they should. A sin is to veer from one’s own path, to ignore the call. For many years I was consumed by the notion of sin, the possibility of sin, and maybe what even seemed like my own inherent sinful nature, my bad self. I misunderstood the true nature of sin.

I lived in constant fear, an obsessive compulsive way of being, constantly afraid that the contents of my own mind would be my undoing. I worried that I would contract and spread illness from touching toilet seats and door handles. I wondered if I had not somehow hit someone with my car, circling the block to make sure there had been no bloody corpse left in my wake. I repeatedly checked stoves and locks. New stories horrified me, what could make someone do something so awful, why would God allow it, and did this same evil lurk somewhere deep inside me? As a child I prayed to make sure the bridge below me wouldn’t collapse, that my mother wouldn’t die on her way from work.  I dared not play games like Bloody Mary like the other kids, lest I actually summon an actual demon. And yet a part of me always knew that the thoughts, as terrifying as they were, were not true, and yet I continued this same painful mental flagellation. 

Jung maintained that “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering”. In some ways the neuroses kept me safe, miserable but safe. It gave me something to focus on a problem to try and solve. But as the years went on the nature of the obsessions and compulsions became even more disturbing, more consuming, I was drowning, a deluge of my own warped thoughts. 

Was it my brain, with its faulty wiring, sending me into spirals of doom and dread? Maybe but I believe now that my soul, in its own albeit dramatic way, was talking to me, trying desperately to get my attention. And when I ignored the whispers and the gentle nudges, it brought me to my knees. And even now I should falter, sinking back into a drunken stupor of distraction, of sin, of missing the mark, of failing my own calling, I am always reminded again, and again.