Psalm 32
A small series published in Upper Hutt, 1981. One titled: “When I am naughty.” (If you search online this is catalogued as “Readers – Children – Conduct of Life”.)
Insert picture
My attention was captured: sin is on my mind.
"Sometimes I do things that are naughty"
"Sometimes I do things that make people angry"
“I want to do the things that are right but sometimes I just don’t know.”
Naughty is a word I am very interested in, because I have consciously chosen not to use it describe my kids’ behaviour. This book, on the other hand, is very confident about labelling "naughty". In one incident, dad growls after reaching results in a spill on the table.
Insert picture
Doubtless life was simpler in the 80s, but I don’t consider that naughty.
Careless? Inconvenient? Unplanned? Requiring a cloth?
This little book certainly illustrates how one time / place / person's perception of wrong-doing is another time / place / person's perception of neutral or perhaps even right. "Sometimes I do things that make people angry" is not always a bad thing: Kate Shepherd! Whina Cooper! (Besides which, most of us have learned others don’t make us angry – “I feel angry when …, because …, can we work this out together?”)
The book also illustrates what I am most interested in today: language has immense power. Not just the power to label, but the power to create.
I am aware, awed, by how much power I have as mother, to construct reality for my children.
The language I choose and offer to my kids shapes their experience of reality. It is hard (impossible?) for them to experience and process things they have no vocabulary for.
Equally if I go on and on about something chances are they will come to notice it and experience it.
It’s a huge tension.
I don't want burden my kids with language of naughtiness, when other words might be more helpful. Yet I don't want them to lack the word when they need it, which they probably will at some point.
Being labelled might be limiting.
Yet vocabulary is empowering.
Having a wide vocabulary allows you to express yourself.
It also allows you to know more clearly what is going on within you or around you.
When we had our tour through the heart ward before our son was born, there was a little girl in a room sobbing and sobbing. The nurse showing us round remarked dismissively, "Don’t worry, she’s fine."
Well obviously she wasn’t. Maybe she wasn’t going into cardiac arrest, but she wasn’t fine. She was crying.
Reflecting on sin, as an aside, I’d say it was sinful that I didn’t speak up on behalf of that little girl. Perhaps she lacked the vocab to say, “I feel sad, angry, lonely, bored, I want attention, I don't want to be here, I can’t believe I ever did have or will have more to my life than this hospital.”
New words open new worlds.
On Thursday our son signed “help” for the first time, while trying to connect two bits of duplo. "Help" "More" "Brother" he signed in a row. It takes my breath away to think how this opens up his world!
So back to sin. Here’s the premise:
We need the language of sin.
If you think it’s oppressive, controlling, negative… I know what you mean.
Yet a well-rounded understanding of sin is something the church has to offer.
When a few of us undertook a theology of our building we considered what it was about a church building that was unique in the community – what it offered that people couldn’t find in cafes or libraries or halls.
We concluded that sacred space was unique and important.
Sacred space isn’t trendy, sacred space can’t turn into a neutral theatre or a pilates studio, sacred space is a stubborn waste of space, sacred space sticks up for the divine and insists: God matters.
Likewise, sin.
Even though it might appear clunky and out-of-place.
It’s not the vocab of psychology or sociology or biology – it doesn’t need to be (though there may be lots in common).
It’s a unique vocab for expressing dis-ease, regret, dismay, sorrow, horror, pain.
And shedding, freeing, hopefulness is built in – because sin doesn’t exist apart from God’s willingness to forgive.
This is unique and vital to our understanding of sin.
"The days are long gone when most preachers can stand up in pulpits and name people's sins for them. They do not have that authority anymore. What they can do, I believe, is to describe the experience of sin and its aftermath so vividly that people can identify its presence in their own lives, not as a chronic source of guilt, nor as sure proof that they are inherently bad, but as part of their individual and corporate lives that is crying out for change." (Barbara Brown Taylor, Speaking of Sin, p20-21)
To lack the vocab for sin is risky, in fact that Psalm 32 likens it to bones wasting away, strength dried up.
And to find the words, break the silence, acknowledge sin, is to discover the rushing relief of forgiveness.
"...sin is our only hope, because the recognition that something is wrong is the first step toward setting it right again. There is no help for those who admit no need of help. There is no repair for those who insist that nothing is broken, and there is no hope of transformation for a world whose inhabitants accept that it is sadly but irreversibly wrecked." (Barbara Brown Taylor, Speaking of Sin, p41.)
It's complicated, isn't it?
There is a tension between oppressing with language, and freeing with language.
And although the psalmist encourages breaking the silence on sin, there is nevertheless a tension between breaking silence and leaving silence.
Break the silence by finding the language of fallibility , fragility, wrongdoing, messing up: sin.
They are not dirty secrets.
They are our reality.
God knows it and God’s steadfast love surrounds us.
We need not fear naming it and knowing it.
However, breaking the silence may not always involve string of words and details.
Have mercy on me, a sinner
On us, sinners
May be enough.
Cynthia Bourgeault says (about Centering Prayer, but it's relatable): “What goes on in those silent depths … is no one's business, not even your own; it is between your innermost being and God…" (Centering Prayer and the Inner Awakening, p 6)
Psalm 32 starts with forgiveness, which is a good place for us to start too.
The language of sin is an invitation to recognise afresh the reality of being human. To know we all need forgiveness, and to know it is available, always.
They cannot be split.
A small series published in Upper Hutt, 1981. One titled: “When I am naughty.” (If you search online this is catalogued as “Readers – Children – Conduct of Life”.)
Insert picture
My attention was captured: sin is on my mind.
"Sometimes I do things that are naughty"
"Sometimes I do things that make people angry"
“I want to do the things that are right but sometimes I just don’t know.”
Naughty is a word I am very interested in, because I have consciously chosen not to use it describe my kids’ behaviour. This book, on the other hand, is very confident about labelling "naughty". In one incident, dad growls after reaching results in a spill on the table.
Insert picture
Doubtless life was simpler in the 80s, but I don’t consider that naughty.
Careless? Inconvenient? Unplanned? Requiring a cloth?
This little book certainly illustrates how one time / place / person's perception of wrong-doing is another time / place / person's perception of neutral or perhaps even right. "Sometimes I do things that make people angry" is not always a bad thing: Kate Shepherd! Whina Cooper! (Besides which, most of us have learned others don’t make us angry – “I feel angry when …, because …, can we work this out together?”)
The book also illustrates what I am most interested in today: language has immense power. Not just the power to label, but the power to create.
I am aware, awed, by how much power I have as mother, to construct reality for my children.
The language I choose and offer to my kids shapes their experience of reality. It is hard (impossible?) for them to experience and process things they have no vocabulary for.
Equally if I go on and on about something chances are they will come to notice it and experience it.
It’s a huge tension.
I don't want burden my kids with language of naughtiness, when other words might be more helpful. Yet I don't want them to lack the word when they need it, which they probably will at some point.
Being labelled might be limiting.
Yet vocabulary is empowering.
Having a wide vocabulary allows you to express yourself.
It also allows you to know more clearly what is going on within you or around you.
When we had our tour through the heart ward before our son was born, there was a little girl in a room sobbing and sobbing. The nurse showing us round remarked dismissively, "Don’t worry, she’s fine."
Well obviously she wasn’t. Maybe she wasn’t going into cardiac arrest, but she wasn’t fine. She was crying.
Reflecting on sin, as an aside, I’d say it was sinful that I didn’t speak up on behalf of that little girl. Perhaps she lacked the vocab to say, “I feel sad, angry, lonely, bored, I want attention, I don't want to be here, I can’t believe I ever did have or will have more to my life than this hospital.”
New words open new worlds.
On Thursday our son signed “help” for the first time, while trying to connect two bits of duplo. "Help" "More" "Brother" he signed in a row. It takes my breath away to think how this opens up his world!
So back to sin. Here’s the premise:
We need the language of sin.
If you think it’s oppressive, controlling, negative… I know what you mean.
Yet a well-rounded understanding of sin is something the church has to offer.
When a few of us undertook a theology of our building we considered what it was about a church building that was unique in the community – what it offered that people couldn’t find in cafes or libraries or halls.
We concluded that sacred space was unique and important.
Sacred space isn’t trendy, sacred space can’t turn into a neutral theatre or a pilates studio, sacred space is a stubborn waste of space, sacred space sticks up for the divine and insists: God matters.
Likewise, sin.
Even though it might appear clunky and out-of-place.
It’s not the vocab of psychology or sociology or biology – it doesn’t need to be (though there may be lots in common).
It’s a unique vocab for expressing dis-ease, regret, dismay, sorrow, horror, pain.
And shedding, freeing, hopefulness is built in – because sin doesn’t exist apart from God’s willingness to forgive.
This is unique and vital to our understanding of sin.
"The days are long gone when most preachers can stand up in pulpits and name people's sins for them. They do not have that authority anymore. What they can do, I believe, is to describe the experience of sin and its aftermath so vividly that people can identify its presence in their own lives, not as a chronic source of guilt, nor as sure proof that they are inherently bad, but as part of their individual and corporate lives that is crying out for change." (Barbara Brown Taylor, Speaking of Sin, p20-21)
To lack the vocab for sin is risky, in fact that Psalm 32 likens it to bones wasting away, strength dried up.
And to find the words, break the silence, acknowledge sin, is to discover the rushing relief of forgiveness.
"...sin is our only hope, because the recognition that something is wrong is the first step toward setting it right again. There is no help for those who admit no need of help. There is no repair for those who insist that nothing is broken, and there is no hope of transformation for a world whose inhabitants accept that it is sadly but irreversibly wrecked." (Barbara Brown Taylor, Speaking of Sin, p41.)
It's complicated, isn't it?
There is a tension between oppressing with language, and freeing with language.
And although the psalmist encourages breaking the silence on sin, there is nevertheless a tension between breaking silence and leaving silence.
Break the silence by finding the language of fallibility , fragility, wrongdoing, messing up: sin.
They are not dirty secrets.
They are our reality.
God knows it and God’s steadfast love surrounds us.
We need not fear naming it and knowing it.
However, breaking the silence may not always involve string of words and details.
Have mercy on me, a sinner
On us, sinners
May be enough.
Cynthia Bourgeault says (about Centering Prayer, but it's relatable): “What goes on in those silent depths … is no one's business, not even your own; it is between your innermost being and God…" (Centering Prayer and the Inner Awakening, p 6)
Psalm 32 starts with forgiveness, which is a good place for us to start too.
The language of sin is an invitation to recognise afresh the reality of being human. To know we all need forgiveness, and to know it is available, always.
They cannot be split.
