{"id":26633,"date":"2026-03-09T09:46:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=26633"},"modified":"2026-03-09T09:59:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T13:59:06","slug":"26633","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=26633","title":{"rendered":"An Illusion of Separateness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"No Longer Slaves (Official Lyric Video) - Bethel Music, Jonathan &amp; Melissa Helser | Peace\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/otmBLQJ7IUQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What Do We Do with Sin?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sunday, March 8, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard Rohr explores a broad definition of the word \u201csin\u201d:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The great illusion we must all overcome is the illusion of separateness. It\u2019s almost the only task of religion\u2014to communicate not worthiness, but union; to reconnect us to our original identity \u201chidden with Christ in God\u201d (Colossians 3:3). The <strong>Bible calls that state of separateness \u201csin,\u201d and its total undoing is stated frequently as God\u2019s clear job description<\/strong>: \u201cMy dear people, we are already the children of God; it is only what is in the future that has not yet been revealed, and then all we know is that we shall be like him\u201d (1 John 3:2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The word&nbsp;<em>sin&nbsp;<\/em>has so many unhelpful connotations in most of our minds that it\u2019s very problematic today. For most of us, it does not connote a state of alienation or separateness. Instead, it connotes naughty behavior and personal moral unworthiness. <strong>But these are merely symptoms and not the state itself! Disconnected people&nbsp;<em>will&nbsp;<\/em>do stupid and harmful things. Instead, the core and foundational meaning of sin is any life lived autonomous and outside \u201cthe garden of Eden.\u201d We cannot ever become perfect or \u201cworthy,\u201d but we can become reconnected to our Source.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sin primarily describes a state of fragmentation\u2014when the part thinks it\u2019s separate from the Whole. It\u2019s the loss of any inner experience of who we are in God. That \u201cwho\u201d is nothing we can earn or obtain. It\u2019s nothing we can accomplish or work up to. <strong>Why?&nbsp;<em>Because we already have it.&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <strong>biblical revelation is about awakening, not accomplishing. It\u2019s about realization and not performance principles.&nbsp;<em>We cannot get there; we can only be there,<\/em><\/strong><em>&nbsp;<\/em>but that foundational Being-in-God, for some reason, is<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"> too hard to believe and too good to be true<\/span>. Only the humble can receive it, because it affirms more about God than it does about us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ego, however, makes it all about achievement and attainment. At that point, religion becomes a worthiness contest in which everybody loses\u2014which they realize, if they\u2019re honest. Many people give up on the whole spiritual journey when they see that they can\u2019t live up to the performance principle. They don\u2019t want to live as hypocrites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet<strong> union with God is really about awareness and realignment<\/strong>, a Copernican revolution of the mind and heart that is sometimes called conversion. (Copernicus, of course, was the first to claim that the world revolves around the sun, not vice versa\u2014a truly shocking revelation in the 16th century!) Following conversion, that deep and wondrous inner knowing, a whole new set of behaviors and lifestyle will surely emerge. <strong>It is not that&nbsp;<em>if&nbsp;<\/em>I am moral,&nbsp;<em>then&nbsp;<\/em>I will be loved by God; rather, I must first come to experience God\u2019s love and then I will\u2014almost naturally\u2014be moral.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>==============<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What About Original Sin?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Monday, March 9, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard shares his understanding of original sin:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The \u201cimage of God\u201d in us is absolute and unchanging. It\u2019s pure and total gift, given equally to all. But this picture was complicated when the concept of original sin<em>&nbsp;<\/em>entered the Christian mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this idea\u2014<strong>first put forth by Augustine in the fifth century but never mentioned in the Bible<\/strong>\u2014we emphasized that human beings were born into \u201csin\u201d because Adam and Eve \u201coffended God\u201d by eating from the \u201ctree of the knowledge of good and evil.\u201d As punishment, God cast them out of the garden of Eden. Original sin wasn\u2019t something we did at all; it was something that was&nbsp;<em>done to us&nbsp;<\/em>(passed down from Adam and Eve). In this understanding, we\u2019re all off to a bad start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By contrast, most of the world\u2019s great religions start with some sense of primal goodness in their creation stories. The Jewish and Christian traditions beautifully succeeded at this, with the Genesis record telling us that God called creation \u201cgood\u201d five times in Genesis 1:10\u201325, and even \u201cvery good\u201d in 1:31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But <strong>after Augustine, most Christian theologies shifted from the positive vision of Genesis 1 to the more negative vision of Genesis 3<\/strong>\u2014the so-called fall, or what I am calling the \u201cproblem.\u201d Instead of embracing God\u2019s master plan for humanity and creation\u2014what we Franciscans still call the \u201cPrimacy of Christ\u201d\u2014Christians shrunk our image of both Jesus and Christ. Our \u201cSavior\u201d became a mere Johnny-come-lately \u201canswer\u201d to the problem of sin, a problem that we had largely created ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In one way, the doctrine of \u201coriginal sin\u201d was good and helpful in that it taught us not to be surprised at the frailty and woundedness that we all carry.<em><\/em>Just as goodness is inherent and shared, so it seems with evil. This is, in fact, a very merciful teaching. Knowledge of our shared wound ought to free us from the burden of unnecessary and individual guilt or shame and help us to be forgiving and compassionate with ourselves and one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet historically speaking, the <strong>teaching of original sin started us off on the wrong foo<\/strong>t\u2014with a no instead of a yes, with mistrust instead of trust.<em>&nbsp;<\/em>We have spent centuries trying to solve the \u201cproblem\u201d that we\u2019re told is at the heart of our humanity. But if we start with a problem, we tend to never get beyond that mindset.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To begin climbing out of the hole of original sin, <strong>we must start with a positive and generous cosmic vision. Generosity tends to build on itself.&nbsp;<em>I have never met a truly compassionate or loving human being who did not have a foundational and even deep trust in the inherent goodness of human nature.<\/em><\/strong><em>&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Christian story line must start with a positive and overarching vision for humanity and for history, or it will never get beyond the primitive, exclusionary, and fear-based stages of most early human development. <strong>We are ready for a major course correction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>===========<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u270d\ufe0f Questions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For individual reflection (before the gathering):<\/strong>&nbsp;Think of a time in your spiritual life when you felt like you were working hard to close a gap \u2014 to become worthy, to get back to God, to fix what felt broken in you. What were you actually&nbsp;<em>believing<\/em>&nbsp;about yourself in that season? And when \u2014 if ever \u2014 did that change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>For group discussion:<\/strong>&nbsp;Rohr says the church has spent centuries &#8220;trying to solve the problem that we&#8217;re told is at the heart of our humanity&#8221; \u2014 and that starting with a problem almost guarantees we never get beyond it. Where do&nbsp;<em>you<\/em>&nbsp;most naturally start \u2014 with what&#8217;s wrong in you, or with what&#8217;s already true about you? And what might it take to actually believe the &#8220;yes&#8221; before the &#8220;no&#8221;?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Do We Do with Sin? Sunday, March 8, 2026 Father Richard Rohr explores a broad definition of the word \u201csin\u201d:&nbsp;&nbsp; The great illusion we must all overcome is the illusion of separateness. It\u2019s almost the only task of religion\u2014to communicate not worthiness, but union; to reconnect us to our original identity \u201chidden with Christ [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26633"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26633"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26636,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26633\/revisions\/26636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}