Iron Mountain ski jump

Iron Mountain ski jump

Sunday, June 28, 2015

IT IS FOR ME-A poem about peculiar sins

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter… ©

Most mornings, I write a little semi-poem just to find out what I’m thinking. This morning I was thinking about the peculiar, in the sense of “individual,” nature of sin, because I have recently been in the company of a couple of addicts, one an alcoholic and the other a gambler. There are some sins that are quite general—murder, rape, etc. It is hard to imagine a time when those acts are not sins. But drinking beer or taking a pain medication is usually not a sin. It becomes one, though, through addiction. The same is true with playing church bingo. If you cannot “use successfully,” then using at all becomes a sin. An addict knows that regardless of what others can do, they have to avoid that act. They cannot “use successfully.”

I never edit my little morning poems, just let them stand as they come out of my heart and pen, so, it’s not a great poem, hardly a poem at all, but perhaps a start to thinking about actions that might not be a sin for others but are for me or you.

It Is For Me

For someone else
it might not be a sin
to ignore the smell of new turned land
to forget the feel of a tiny hand
to lose the hope in a wedding band
            but it is for me

For someone else
it might not be a sin
to pass a beggar on the street
to fail to dance to a ragtime beat
to leave the kitchen when there’s heat
            but it is for me

For someone else
it might not be a sin
to walk in the way that’s not narrow and straight
to turn away when encountering hate
to skip on the edge just to tempt fate
            but it is for me


John Robert McFarland
johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.


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