A lot of things didn't make sense to me as a child growing up Catholic.
I was taught, for example, that babies are born full of so much bad juju that they can't be cleared to breathe until they are purified by a priest.
Original sin, they call it, the gift of Adam and Eve's DNA.
From an early age, I couldn't grasp that a tiny baby, who's been floating around on a liquid pillow inside her mother, is the evil one.
As an adult, after more years in therapy than not, during which I studied the anatomy of not only my soul, but that of my mother, my father, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, Mother Teresa, Rumi, Harriet Tubman, Betty Friedan, Carl Jung and the Pope, I dared to come to a different theory: that we are as untainted as we will ever be, before we gasp that first gulp of polluted Earth air.
It's not original sin we are born into. It is, instead, original perfection, which we spend our adult lives trying to return to.
I was taught, for example, that babies are born full of so much bad juju that they can't be cleared to breathe until they are purified by a priest.
Original sin, they call it, the gift of Adam and Eve's DNA.
From an early age, I couldn't grasp that a tiny baby, who's been floating around on a liquid pillow inside her mother, is the evil one.
As an adult, after more years in therapy than not, during which I studied the anatomy of not only my soul, but that of my mother, my father, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Confucius, Mother Teresa, Rumi, Harriet Tubman, Betty Friedan, Carl Jung and the Pope, I dared to come to a different theory: that we are as untainted as we will ever be, before we gasp that first gulp of polluted Earth air.
It's not original sin we are born into. It is, instead, original perfection, which we spend our adult lives trying to return to.
We are all, ultimately, human, with frailties, weaknesses and flaws.But it’s not the devil or even the heritage of Adam and Eve that piles this on before we take a breath.
It is man-and woman-made failings after we are born that move us into human suffering, or, if you must, “sin,” which in Hebrew simply means “away from God."
Some of these failings are unintentional and relatively benign, beginning with the common mistakes of our parents. Others constitute outright trauma.
Regardless, whether we are born in a refugee camp or Lori Loughlin’s Hallmark house, none of us escapes unscathed. Even our own children, who we vow we will never harm, become wounded.
No matter, and here’s the good news: If we have any measure of awareness and a seeking soul, if we can find our way to therapy, a good love relationship, yoga, meditation, a peyote ceremony or even a good church, we can catch and hold bigger and bigger glimpses of who we were before we became incarnate.
This can take decades, don’t I know.
But spending one’s life trying to remember and return to that state of being that constituted our real identity, that place of grace and purity when all was right, or at least right-er, with ourselves and the world, is not a bad purpose in life if you ask me.
And that's my truth.
