Monday, October 30, 2017

Happy Halloween? Not yet ... but soon

The United States will be celebrating its second biggest holiday - after Christmas - tomorrow: Halloween.

By 'second biggest,' I mean as far as retailers and money spent. There will be parties, costumes, candy, more candy. Some start celebrating well before the actual Oct. 31 date. In my office building, at least one office allowed its employees to dress up last Friday, and I know there were parties all weekend, where people dressed up in costume and celebrated being something other than themselves.

As a kid, I loved Halloween because of the candy, and the chance to go out with friends, door-to-door, up and down streets and into neighborhoods where I rarely normally travelled. We used to map out exactly which neighborhoods and streets we wanted to "hit,'' seeing how we could work our way back-and-forth down one long street, cut through some woods into another neighborhood to hit that those houses, then cut back through a couple of back-yards to get back to the street leading us back to our own houses. We worked out the advance like Eisenhower planning the D-Day invasion of Europe.

We didn't spend a lot of time on costumes, maybe because usually either our parents made our costumes or we put something together ourselves, using stuff we found around the house. It used to be a cliché of putting white sheet over your head and cutting out eye-holes, but that wasn't a cliché in our neighborhood. Once I decided to go as a "thug," (which would be very non-politically correct these days, I guess). To my chagrin none of our neighbors got my costume; they thought I was just dressed normally.

Costumes have gotten more elaborate, both for kids and adults. For kids, you almost have to go buy a pre-packaged costume, and I admit they are cute. The real phenomenon, to me, is the growth in adult costumes. I guess my generation really never did grow up, and we set the tone for the next generations of people who love to dress up in any number of creative, original, outrageous, or sometimes obscene outfits.

As a Christian, I have struggled with Halloween. Is it a pagan holiday, and are we "celebrating" the powers of darkness by dressing up as ghosts, witches, devils, and all sorts of evil beings?

But it occurs to me that the holiday teaches us a few important lessons about the human condition.

One, many of us want to be something other than what we are. Oh, we may not really be unhappy in who we are, but isn't it fun to dress up like a superhero and, at least for one night, go out in disguise to do things that we might never do otherwise? We all have that nature within us, that we keep under control because we know it's not the right way to act; but every now and then its fun to let the "stranger" (to refer to an old Billy Joel song) come out, to give in to our other self, remove - although hopefully not completely - some of the restraints that keep our society safe and secure. It's kind of a reminder that we know we're not who we're meant to be, and we hope for that day when we find our purpose, our meaning, our true happiness. (However, it won't be the personas that too many take on for Halloween!)

Two, we recognize there is evil. Maybe we don't come right out and say it, but in all of our "dress up" as evil creatures, we're acknowledging that there is a dark side to our world, the possibility of a realm that "civilized" people say they don't believe in and certainly don't discuss in regular conversation. As a child, my family often hosted missionaries from around the world. I remember very specifically a missionary from Japan from back in the 1960s who talked about feeling the presence of demons and evil spirits. I have shared my own experience with participating in an exorcism (that wasn't really an exorcism but rather a guy suffering from delirium tremens). What that experience taught me was that somewhere, down deep, I do fear that spirits and demons are real, and I don't think I'm alone. We often hear of people talk about "powers of darkness" or being "consumed by evil." There is an entire industry of movies based on "horror" films about what happens in abandoned houses, empty cemeteries, lonely old hotels, and on dark and stormy nights. We can tell ourselves that we're too smart, too "enlightened" to believe in such stuff, but down deep, I think we all know that evil is real.

Three, evil is real, but Good overcomes Evil; love wins. We see it over and over throughout history. Oct. 30 is the anniversary of the last time the late Dr. Martin Luther King was arrested (it happened to be in Birmingham, Al., where I live), and for all of his flaws Dr. King demonstrated that peacefulness and kindness can indeed overcome hate and violence. You hear people say, "How can there be a God when there is so much evil in the world?" I say that evil merely proves that God exists, because evil is the perversion of good, which means good had to come first. All of our experiences with evil are nothing more than the perversion - the altering or spoiling - of something good. The world, I believe, was created without sin, which means without pain and deceit and betrayal. However, once evil entered the world (through disobedience and deceit and betrayal, leading to pain), rebellion against good came with it. And as much as we try to be "good,'' we have a hard time defining what "good" even means; of determining what "good" means in light of our own wants and desires; of controlling our own impulse for what makes me feel good even if it hurts you. We've lost sight of what "good" really is, which - I believe - is a proper understanding of God and who God is and what God wants for all of mankind.

Four, we don't understand hell. Ask someone "who rules in hell?" Chances are, you'll be told "Satan." I used to ask two questions when I taught kids' Bible classes. The first: Who rules in heaven? And they would kind of say, "God?" with a real questioning tone as if it was a trick question. Then I'd ask, "Who rules in hell?" And it was amazing- they'd almost shout out, "Satan!" or "The Devil!", confident in their answer. But of course, they were wrong. God rules in heaven, but God also rules in Hell. In fact, God created Hell as a place where Satan and his followers will be sent for eternal punishment. It's not some equal but opposite side of Heaven. John Milton, in Paradise Lost, wrote the line, "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven," and I've heard that quoted many times by many different people over the years. The problem is, you won't reign in hell. You can't reign in hell. Hell is a place of isolation and eternal torment, the ultimate punishment for the evil of rejecting God. However, the very fact that so many people believe the cartoons and movies and books that suggest Satan is sitting on a throne in hell, sending out demons and devils to do his bidding, only tell us how completely we've lost the truth of what hell really is. But Paul writes in Colossians that God "has delivered us from the domain of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of His Son." (1:13) 1 John 3:8 says, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work."

All of this is why Halloween All Hallows Eve ("Halloween") is followed by All Hallows Day (or "All Saints Day.").

Ironically, Oct 31, 1517, on the day before "All Saints Day,'' the 33-year-old Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. It's the date we credit with the start of the Reformation (although, to be truthful, the reformation of the Church was already going on in many places around Europe; it's just that Luther's resulted in the trial and conflict with the Roman Catholic Church, getting all the headlines).

In fact, the other name for Oct. 31 is "Reformation Day." Unfortunately, it hasn't caught on with retailers and partiers around the world.

Here is why I don't have a problem with Halloween, however. One of the slogans of the Protestant Reformation was Post tenebras lux: "After darkness, light."

Remember that in the morning after Halloween. The Gospel assures us that darkness has been defeated, that the "light of the world" has defeated darkness, and we're just waiting on that day when evil will, once and for all, be defeated.

Happy Halloween?

Not yet.

But soon.

Friday, October 27, 2017

Ode to obscurity

Growing up, I wanted to be somebody.

As the joke goes, maybe I should have been a little more specific.

But you know what I mean; I wanted to do something important, be somebody important, be significant in a way that people would remember me for generations (if not longer).

Part of it was, sure, I wanted to be famous. I wanted people I didn't know to know who I am. I wanted people I didn't know to talk about me the way I talked about people that I knew were famous. I wanted to walk into a place have people whisper to each other, "Do you know who that is?" while I was too cool to notice, trying to act like a "regular guy" even while the maître d fawned over me, the waiters and waitresses made sure I had everything I wanted, the chef came out to offer me his not-listed-on-the-menu-but-he'd-make-if-for-me special.

But I didn't entirely want to be famous just for the sake of being famous (like a teenager I saw on an episode of Dr. Phil who said her goal was to "be famous,'' but when asked how she had no idea - she just wanted to be famous). I actually wanted to do something to deserve being famous. Even when I was going through my dreams of being an NFL quarterback or an NBA power forward or a major league baseball relief pitcher, at the end of that I still wanted to be a writer who would write books that would be in libraries and become required reading for future generations.

I was always enamored with the written word. I remember when my brother, David, taught me how to write my name, I held that piece of paper dearly, believing that - like Steve Martin's character in "The Jerk" when the phone books came out - once your name was in print, who knows who might see it and what opportunities might come your way?

To be honest, I have experienced a rather curious form of underserved fame. I apparently look like some vague actor, and it really gives people fits. Particularly, in seems, black people or college kids who like certain syfy or horror films. I can't tell you how many people who come up to me and say, "I know who you are!" They can't think of who they think I am but are convinced I'm an actor. I had a college student valet at a hotel in Greenville, S.C., who was so excited to park my car because he "loves my movies." (Although, in retrospect, maybe he does that all the time, hoping to get a bigger tip).

We were at a Sheila E concert (which means mostly old people who remember the 1980s-90s) recently in Birmingham and a guy walked by me and said, "I know who you are. I'm a movie buff, I've seen all your films." I tried to tell him he was mistaken, but he refused to believe me. During the intermission, he came over to shake my hand and ask if he could have his picture made with me.

Recently, the Trophy Wife and I were vacationing in Antigua (we splurged to celebrate her five-year survival mark), and this guy comes up to me as we're walking to dinner one night, "I know who you are. I won't say anything, because I know you're trying to not be noticed. But I love your work." And, again, even as I try to tell him he's wrong, he refused to believe it. He kept saying he would respect my privacy but wanted me to know that he knew.

A woman at the drive-thru window at my local McDonalds wouldn't give me my debit card back until I told her who I was. I told her I wasn't who she thought I was, that she could look at the name on my card and see, but she refused to believe me.

As I said, this goes on all the time. A security guy working a jewelry store in the Grand Caymans was so certain, but just couldn't think of my name, I finally - as we were walking out - leaned close to him and whispered, "Go home and look at the Bruce Willis movie, "The Fifth Element." He got so excited, saying, "I knew it! I knew it!" (There is a character in that movie that I admit I do look like; I've even used a still shot as my picture on my facebook page). I didn't say I was in the movie, I just told him to go watch it. Whatever conclusion he may draw is his own fault.

Now, the funny part is that people can't think of the name of the actor that they think I look like. The nice lady in the deli at the local grocery store went through the whole thing with me, and I said, "I know. I look like Brad Pitt." She, of course, said, "No, not Brad Pitt .." to which I always act hurt and say, "Just once, can't someone say I look like Brad Pitt?" To this day, when I go in, she'll see me and call me "Mr. Pitt." My youngest son went in with me, and she said, "Look - it's Brad Pitt junior!"

Being mistaken for someone famous - while fun - is not the same as actually being somebody famous.

However, the older I get, the more I realize in today's celebrity-driven culture where everyone, as Andy Warhol once said "will be world-famous for 15 minutes", it takes courage to be willing to be obscure and ordinary.

That sounds funny, of course. No one says to their kid, "You can grow up to be ordinary!" And I'm not saying we should strive to be ordinary. But I do think it's too easy to feel I am worthless because I'm not exceptional - and of course, by definition, everyone can't be exceptional. As a friend of mine likes to say, "50 percent of everyone you meet is below average." (I was afraid to ask him if he thought that included me.)

I have come to realize that an awful lot of really important work, work that matters and has a lasting impact, is done in obscurity. Paul said as much in when he told his young protégé, Timothy, "If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs...."

I'm sure even as Timothy heard that, he may have thought, "Sure, but you're Paul! I want to be like you!" - not realizing, perhaps, that being "like Paul" might mean suffering ship wrecks, beatings, jailing, and all sorts of assaults that no one in their right mind would ask for.

While even the Bible has these stories of these great men of faith, there are all kinds of people who are just mentioned, briefly, almost in passing. I think of Joshua's partner, Caleb. Or the relatively unknown Barnabas of the New Testament that, while we've created a whole idea of who he was and what we think we did, we don't really know for sure. Remember that (for a time) famous book about the "Prayer of Jabez?" What do we know about Jabez, other than those few words? What is there to know about Jabez other than these 50 or so words that appear in the midst of 1 Chronicles. Timothy, Titus, Luke, Silas, Tychicus, John Mark – they are names in the New Testament that carried a lot of weight with Paul, but to most of us they are just "the other guys," guys not named Paul or John or Peter.

There are people all around us who are "in the trenches,'' so to speak, the ones who follow the well-known, the leaders, and faithfully do the work.

I know it is human nature to rebel against obscurity. We have that innate desire to be known.

In today's world, I think it takes courage to be willing to be over-looked, to work in obscurity, to find satisfaction in knowing you're doing your best (or at least trying to), and knowing that you are performing not for the recognition of those around you but for that audience of One.

"If I could,'' author Emily Bronte once said, "I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results."

The point is that while we may think we toil in obscurity, we don't. God knows us. I know this from the end of Hebrews 11, that famous chapter referred to as the "Hall of Faith." After a list of well-known names and stories, it says, "Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated — of whom the world was not worthy." (Hebrews 11:35–38)

We are all well-known in heaven. Let us live with both the knowledge and responsibility of that fact.











Wednesday, October 11, 2017

Lamentations and Irritations

Maybe this happens to you.

I'm driving. I do a lot of driving. The car in front of me is slow, as if unsure of where it is going, but the road is such that I can't get around it. I get irritated.

I'm reading. I do a lot of reading. My phone rings and it breaks my concentration. I get irritated.

I'm trying to get somewhere. I do that a lot, too. But the person or people I'm going with are not ready to go because they are talking or checking something or just being slow. I get irritated.

I don't feel well. Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often. But when it does, and I can't find any relief ... I get irritated.

Now, I don't think I get irritated a lot. But I do get irritated.

The comedian Whoopi Goldberg once said, "I don't have pet peeves. I have whole kennels of irritation."

I can blame a lot of things for my irritation: that goofball driver who doesn't know where they are going; that person who calls me for some inane reason when I'm enjoying a good book; those people who are lollygagging when they should be ready to go; getting sick through no fault of my own.

But at the end of the day, being irritated is my problem.

Or maybe, it's my sin.

It comes out of my own selfishness. I'm not irritated for any noble reason, for lack of justice or righteousness or mercy being displayed to someone who needs it; I'm irritated because I'm not getting what I want, when my desires are being denied, delayed, or disrupted.

What I want to do may not be a bad thing. Certainly there is nothing wrong with travel, or reading, or being on time for an appointment, or being sick.

But, like most sin, it's not the thing that is bad, but my action (or reaction) to get what that thing is.

It's putting my own wants, desires, self - first.

Hebrews 12:1 says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us ..." We're being watched by those witnesses who exists across that great gulf between this world and the spiritual world, those folks who now have a true understanding of time and what matters. Since we're living our lives before those witnesses, we should not get hindered and entangled in things that don't really matter, and run the race that is before us not with great speed but with patience and endurance, since we don't know where the finish line is anyway or how soon we may reach it.

Proverbs 15:1 says "A gentle word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." I wonder how many people I provoke in a given day by my irritability. I'm very aware that how I act affects other people. If I'm harsh with people in my office, they can become harsh in how they deal with the people we're here to help. If I'm rude to the person in the drive-thru window, they may take it out on the next person in line. If, while driving, I get right up on the bumper of the person who doesn't seem to know where they are going or just isn't comfortable driving fast, I may cause them anxiety then fear then anger over feeling pushed or intimidated. I know if I come home in the evening and yell my family, they learn to mimic my behavior - maybe not right then, but they will at some point down the road because I am their example.

"Love," writes the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 13, is not "rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful." In other words, we're not to live with a short fuse, demanding to be treated "fairly" (by my standards of "fair," of course). I heard someone once say, "Don't live by the Golden Rule - 'Treat others as you want to be treated.' No, live by the Platinum Rule - 'Treat others the way they deserve and want to be treated.'

I don't know about the 'Platinum Rule,' but I think there is something to what he was saying.

God gets angry. But I don't think He gets irritated.

Why do I think that? Because it seems that when God gets angry, He takes a long time to get there (Exodus 34:6 says God is slow to anger). Throughout the Old Testament, the children of Israel seem to be crying out for God to act on their behalf, but God seems to be taking his own sweet time. See, God only gets angry when it's time to get angry, when it is the last resort and his Righteousness and Justice have been ignored and even despised.

And then, when God does get angry, it's always with just the right measure. Oh, it may be devastating, but it makes His point and is rarely forgotten.

I need to be more like that. I need to summon my anger judiciously, and only when absolutely necessary and only for the absolutely right reasons. James 1:19 says we are to be "slow to anger." Ephesians 4:26 says there are times when we should be angry, but not to let that anger cause us to sin.

I read an article from a pastor named Jon Bloom who wrote, "Jesus didn’t die for our punctuality, earthly reputation, convenience, or our leisure. But he did die for souls. It is likely that the worth of the soul(s) we’re irritable with is infinitely more precious to God than the thing we desire. We must not dishonor God, whose image that person bears, by being irritable with them. There are necessary times for considered, thoughtful, measured, righteous, loving anger at priceless but sinful souls. But there is never a right time for irritability."

"Never a right time for irritability."

Clearly, this guy has never driven in my lane, or read the book I'm reading, or tried to go someplace with the people I am supposed to go places with, or ...

No. He probably has. My guess is, we all have.

I don't like to think of my irritability as sin. I like to think of it as more of an inconvenience, something that can be justified and excused because of the actions of things beyond my control.

My control.

But guess what? Most of life is beyond my control. And until I recognize whose control my life is under, I'm going to be irritated.







Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Clothes and the origin of sin

I have alluded several times to what I think is one of the most interesting and important stories in the Bible. I'm big on stories that explain a truth that carries over to today. It's one of the reasons I love the book of Job so much - Job suffers these assaults that he doesn't deserve, and that there is no earthly explanation for (despite his friends' best attempts to tell him otherwise). I draw great comfort, for some reason, in that there is an unseen "world" where our lives and the actions of those in that spiritual realm intersect.

The Genesis story of Adam and Eve presents an interesting set of parameters. In Genesis 2:25, the last verse of chapter 2, it says of Adam and Eve, "And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." By verse 7 of Chapter 3 we read, "And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked ..."

Something happens in eight verses that transform Adam and Eve from "naked and were not ashamed" to "they knew they were naked" and they went and made coverings for themselves and actually tried to hide from God.

What happens, of course, is the infamous "fruit" incident. The Serpent comes and tells Eve that if she eats of the one tree (and the command was not to eat of that one tree; there is no command prohibiting Adam and Eve from eating of the "tree of life") she will not die, despite what God has told her.

As a side note, it's interesting that apparently Adam was there while Eve was having this conversation with the snake. He didn't say anything, I guess, but just listened. And I wonder how many of us hear things being proposed that we know are wrong, but we don't say anything because we are curious how this will play out; that maybe it will play out to our advantage. At least in my marriage, I know I have been guilty of not stopping my wife from doing something that, deep down, I didn't think was the best of ideas. I didn't say anything (I would never say "I allowed her to do something;" she has free will in our relationship!), and I wonder if because down deep I probably wanted the same thing, but by letting her make the decision it became a win-win for me: if what she chooses works, I enjoy it too; if it fails, I can blame her. That's not how a healthy relationship is supposed to work.

So anyway, the Serpent says, "You won't die, but you'll gain the knowledge of good and evil and be like gods."

Did Adam and Eve not have knowledge of good and evil prior to that moment? I don't believe so. They had only been told one thing in the entire world that they were not to do (not that they "couldn't" do, because obviously they could do it; they were just not supposed to do it). Even though there was a 'tree of life,' God never told them not to eat of it. And up until that moment in time, eating from that one tree had probably not even really been a temptation because there was so much other stuff to occupy their time, and besides - being with God was so much better than fruit!

As a child, my parents told me to play in our yard but don't leave the yard. It never occurred to me to leave our yard, because I had everything I wanted right there ... until one day the toy I was playing with crossed the fence. Then I was faced with a dilemma: disobey my mother and go get the toy, or wait for my mother to come home and ask her to get the toy (which she would have). You don't even have to ask what I did. I climbed the fence, got the toy, and suddenly realized I could leave the yard with no apparent repercussions. (There eventually would be, but that's another story).

Back to Adam and Eve. They had access to the entire world, animals, whatever landscape and water there was, plenty of fruit to eat, and they got to walk and talk with God their Father every day! I think their entire identity was tied up in that relationship with God the Father; their entire sense of worth and value came from that relationship as children of God who had been given everything they could possibly want; they were completely unaware that there was anything else ... I started to say unaware that there was anything else they could want or hope for, but I doubt they even understood the concept of "want" or "hope for." Their entire sense of awareness was built on that relationship with God, like a baby in its mothers' arms. A baby is part of the entire world, but you know it lives for the time when Mommy holds it, nurses it, talks to it, plays with it. So I can see Adam and Eve running and laughing and playing, and then hearing God coming and dropping whatever they were doing to run find God, like children hearing Daddy's car pull in the driveway, running to welcome him home (I had to get a Daddy reference in there, since I did the baby-Mommy thing).

Then, with one bite of the one fruit they had been told not to partake of, their perspective changed.

Suddenly, Adam and Eve became aware of each other. No, they became aware of themselves - they became self-aware. They had just taken their first action of free will that was outside the boundary God had given them, their first action independent from God. They'd crossed that fence into the neighbor's yard (so to speak).

It had to be something of a shock. Disobedience does that. You suddenly find you have the ability to do something you'd never done, that previous to that moment had never even considered doing.

And as a result, Adam and Eve did indeed become aware of "good and evil."

And instead of living entirely for those moments when they could look into God's face, to hear Him laughing and cooing and playing with them; now they - for the first time in their lives - become "self-aware." The phrase "Hey, look at me!" entered the world. They found they could make decisions independent of God.

And as a result, we have clothes.

Not that I'm against clothes. I'm self-aware enough to know no one wants to see me without clothes, and chances are I don't really want to see you without clothes, either.

But the point - and I do have one, I think - is that Genesis 3 is where we became "self aware."

And we've been struggling with it ever since.

When we no longer get our sense of value and worth based on "walking and talking with God every day;'' when we fail to see our value for the way God sees us, then we start to look at our selves - our own 'nakedness,' so to speak - and, by extension, then we start comparing ourselves to the folks around us, either to build our sense of self-worth or recognize the areas where we lack - that's sin.

And that becomes the crux of so many problems. We look at other people and we judge. We look at ourselves and become so self-absorbed that we give ourselves emotional problems. We have self-doubt or become over-confident; we justify ourselves or get hung up on guilt; we feel cheated or disrespected and start to focus on ways to get revenge. We have sleepless nights thinking about something that either happened to us or that we did to someone else long ago that we just can't get over.

I'm convinced so many of our problems come from being focused on "self."

We generally think of being "self-aware" as a good thing, at least for the most part. But the Bible tells us that we're not supposed to be 'self-aware' - at least from an introspective definition - but to be 'Christ-aware.' The whole, "less of me, more of Him" thing that Paul talks about; Galations 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

A dead person can't be self-aware. And while I try to be "dead to self" as Paul would say ("Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus." Romans 6), I struggle with being very much alive to my own conscious, my own desires, my own emotional "nakedness" if you will.

Which means my sense of self-worth still comes from how I view me, and how I think others view me, without a clear sense of how God views me. I don't allow myself to do things because I'm afraid of what people might think, or what happens if I do it wrong, or what if I make a mistake. Then I beat myself up over decisions I have made that may have turned out poorly, or hurt someone.

In other words, I spend a lot of time thinking about myself.

Unfortunately, I too often see myself as Adam and Eve must have seen each other, hiding in the bushes, trying to string branches and leaves together because they were, for the first time, noticing each other's body parts - the differences, perhaps the flaws (although what could they have compared each other too?), the scratches and bruises (if there were any), maybe even saying, "Ooooh, is God going to be made at you!" Adam blaming Eve, and Eve saying, "Why didn't you stop me!" And both of them trying to keep from being found out.

There are many ways to define "sin." Generally, its an act considered to be against divine law. But I also think it's anything that we allow to get between us and God.

And the first thing to get between me and God? It always seems to be my awareness of myself, my sense of self-worth, my sense of entitlement, my my my and me me me.

No wonder clothes can be so expensive.