I’ve pretty much avoided reading new age philosophy books for most of my adult life, mostly because the fluffy-bunny-sing-kumbaya-feel!-good!-goddammit! smarm just makes me feel like someone shoved a garden hose up my ass and gave me a white light enema.

But my momma did raise me right, so when my sister gave me such a tome for my birthday, complete with the recommendation from Oprah’s Book Club and herself of “It SAVED my LIFE!” I just ooohed and ahhed and thanked her profusely, promising to read it as soon as I finished the book I was working on.

Well, finishing said book came and went, and my birthday present kept staring up at me from the spare sofa, where I had thrown it as soon as I got home that day. So, I started taking it to work, to try and read it during my lunch break.

It’s been slow going. I dunno if it’s because I’m getting older and just don’t have the patience for flowery language anymore (get!-to!-the!-point!-goddamit!) but I’m not able to get through more than a page a day without too much pain.

But today, I actually found something I can USE. And it was about sin. Figures, doesn’t it?

I’m going to quote it for you.

Sin is a word that has been greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted. Literally translated from the ancient Greek in which the New Testament was written, to sin means to miss the mark, as an archer who misses the target, so to sin means to miss the point of human existence. It means to live unskillfully, blindly, and thus to suffer and cause suffering. Again, the term, stripped of its cultural baggage and misinterpretations, points to the dysfunction inherent in the human condition. ¹

And being the hard-assed skeptic that I am, I had to run home to make sure that is really means what he said it means. AND…. well, it seems it does and it doesn’t. According to Wikipedia:

The word sin derives from Old English synn, recorded in use as early as the 9th century.^[1] The same root appears in several other Germanic languages, e.g. Old Norse synd, or German Sünde. There is presumably a Germanic root *sun(d)j? (literally “it is true“).^[2] The word may derive, ultimately, from *es-, one of the Proto-Indo-European roots that meant “to be,” and is a present participle, “being.” Latin, also has an old present participle of esse in the word sons, sont-, which came to mean “guilty” in Latin.^{[citation needed]} The root meaning would appear to be, “it is true;” that is, “the charge has been proven.”

The Greek word hamartia (???????) is usually translated as sin in the New Testament. In Classical Greek, it means “to miss the mark” or “to miss the target” which was also used in Old English archery.^[3] In Koine Greek, which was spoken in the time of the New Testament, however, this translation is not adequate.^[4] In other research, this word has been associated with the “hem” of a garment.^{[citation needed]}

But for my purpose, we are going to assume that this is adequate because, well, I LIKE this translation of the word “sin.” It seems much more organic, and less accusatory. It’s human condition to make mistakes, to miss the mark, to fail.

That is what sin does; it causes suffering, to ourselves, and to others. And while I’m sure God gets disgusted with us sinning so much (Life! ur DOING it WRONG!) - it’s mostly us that gets hurt from sinning.

But this definition shows - we CAN live better, do better, we can get it right. It gives me hope - because it is a guide on how to live life better. Practice may not make perfect, but it does make us better at our aim.

And that’s a good place to start.