Sin: The Great Forgetting

Some of you know that I am now working as a chaplain in a hospital psychiatric ward. This is during the days, and one night per week I stay over at the hospital, on-call, and respond to emergency pages on all the wards (ER, ICU, etc.)

In a brief time, I have learned, or re-learned, a lot about the web of life that surrounds each one of us, the complex relationships that are all affected when something happens to any one of us. When a fatal car accident happens, for example, it is not just the individual that dies, but the family, the friends, and the community. All those fine connecting strings get pulled and many lives are permanently altered.

And that is if everything is going well and healthy in all those relationships. I have already seen what happens when all is not well and the same relationships are strained. A child dies, and the divorced parents haven't even been on speaking terms for years. Who knows how it began, but worlds we try to hard to separately maintain come crashing together, through whatever walls we put up. And perhaps the result can be true reconciliation, or even further destructive pain.

I am thinking quite a bit about the fragility of life these days, and here is a thought:

Sin is the great forgetting.
Forgetting how short our days are on this earth
and how precious other human lives are to us;
as we lash out and grow impatient,
greedy and hateful, vengeful,
and then, all too suddenly,
one of us is lost
and we are jolted

God, shall we ever perfectly remember?