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We love our good old days.  The days that were always brighter, simpler, filled with promise …

Not like today and the grind of getting through it again – and again …

Perhaps that is why it’s preferable to hold onto sin.  And forgiveness.  And all the stuff we “reject” publicly but hang onto privately.  Original Sin.  The Truth of the Garden.  The need for God to wipe out populations.  The need for God to kill seeming innocents because of the label of “a sinful people”.  To have His Only Son be born as One Of Us.  To Have His Only Son die for me.  So His Only Son could rise again.  So I would be washed clean.  As clean as snow.  Forever to Live With Him in Eternity.

That “new covenant” has an awful lot of “old baggage” attached.

The old baggage being the reason for all the “new stuff”.  Which means the new stuff is always explained by the old stuff.  And means that the old stuff never goes away.  So sin remains.  And forgiveness.  And all the “stuff” we reject publicly.  Like the labels of culturally-embedded-legally-sanctioned-discrimination:

Gender … economics … faith … lifestyle … ology and isms … size … appearance … ways of speaking … ways of behaving … all those “all are welcome (not really)” private road-bumps of diversity … all the “not one of us” …

Or has time rewritten every line.

Maybe because the alternative is to Love (and Love and Love).  And “that” Love is a step too far.  So “that” Love needs the law of condition added.  Which makes it so much easier for me to “love” when I want (and not when I don’t).  Which is why we NEED sin.

Because if I take  away sin …

Then my choices of who I love and don’t – and when I love and don’t – and how I love and don’t …

Are mine AND mine alone.

Love is NOT always saying “yes”.  Love is NOT spineless and narcissistic.  Love is NOT all that (dismissed) wishy-washy “romantic” stuff of hearts and flowers.

Love is allowing you your own thoughts, your own possessions, your own self-esteem.  Love is allowing me my own thoughts, my own possessions, my own self-esteem.  Love is allowing each to be who they are AND will/could become.  And Love invites each to allow that in each other.

And that means saying no and yes and nothing at all.

Love is “being” all the time and everywhere with everyone (even myself).  And that takes strength.  More strength than most of us (want to) have.

The strength to be KIND … the strength to NOT snap … the strength to BE bothered … the strength to SEE the goodness in each … the strength TO allow …

To allow interruptions … to allow spontaneity … to allow “walking in faith” … the walking in faith Love that cannot see around the next corner (let alone over the horizon) … a walk guided always by kindness … by strength … by the “being” of Love …

The “good old days” are of law and sacrifice … of forgiveness and sinning again … of the “I can’t help it – God made me this way” … of the self-indulgent narcissism of “Sin” … and ALL the stuff we publicly deny (and privately nurture).

Or has time rewritten every line.

I think it has.  I think that many “good Christians” live by conditional love law even when proclaiming Love as the greatest “commandment” (because why even need a “commandment” to “Love”?).

And – compared to the being of Love – what use has “Sin” (other than to discriminate)?

And to validate the choice of who I love and when and how.  Sin IS the good old days.  It is a list of stuff.  A list that says what is good and what is bad.  What needs to be forgiven and what cannot be forgiven.  It is a list that a lot of Christians hang onto because the alternative is the “being” of Love.

And love takes strength.  And courage.  And walking in faith Love.  Unable to see around the next corner (let alone over the horizon).

And that takes our personal relinquishing of what we label “control”.

Control simply being a bunch of conditions that dictate what I get back for what I put in. And sin.  Which allows the “conditional” investment and reward of my time and possessions – and “that” needs no walking in faith Love.

There are no “good old days”. There never have been.

There was only and ever Love.  And the desire it takes to be the “being” of Love – the being of I am.

Always.

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