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.