The Second Sin

Hi Everyone,

I hope today finds you well.  I walk to the ferry to get to school everyday.  Yesterday morning, I left around 645AM, so it was still partially dark outside.  It'd rained, but looked like it was clearing up, so I thought it'd be an enjoyable walk.  I got maybe 200 feet from the house before my foot slid out from under me, dropping me roughly to the ground where I cracked my knee and elbow.  "What happened?" I wondered.  As I gathered myself and got up I saw this black, plastic mug sized lid-like thing right by me.  "Dang it!" I thought, "someone left this silly lid on the sidewalk and caused me to slip and fall.  How rude!"  At least I had someone (albeit nameless( to blame.

I griped about my fall to a couple people, blaming the black lid bandit all the while, during the day.  In the late afternoon I was moving places at school, so looked at the bottom of my coffee mug as I picked it up and noticed the plastic bottom was missing!  "That's weird," I thought. ... pause ... "Oh, that black plastic lid I saw that I used as a reason to blame someone for my fall was my coffee mug's lid."  I guess I just slipped on my own item (or the wet sidewalk perhaps).  I shouldn't have been blaming some nameless other person.

This theme has come up in the C.S. Lewis class I'm taking as well.  We're into book 5 of the 7 Chronicles of Narnia books.  In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, at one point, while the gang is travelling somewhere Lucy is the only one who sees Aslan.  The Lion indicates to her to follow him by going a different way than they were planning to.  She tells her siblings, but they end up voting to go the way they'd planned, which ends up not turning out so well.  Later, when they backtrack and meet up with Aslan He questions her about the event and she starts to blame her siblings for not following Him.  But, He tells her not to blame them, it was for her to follow regardless.

The interesting thing about this is that blaming is the second sin in the Bible.  In the Garden of Eden, after Adam and Eve eat the apple they feel shame (the first sin) for their nakedness.  Then, when God talks to them about eating the apple they begin blaming.  Adam blames Eve for doing it first and offering it to him, and Eve blames the Serpent.  Blaming is a problem for us that goes back a long way.

My fall yesterday is helping teach me not to blame.  Is there anyone you need to stop blaming?

Grace and peace,
Lang