Earlier today, D and I were bickering about something unimportant, and she drew a distinction between "sin" and "guilt". I asked what she meant, and she just replied airily that if I didn't know the difference then I must be very lucky.
I was slightly annoyed at being answered (or non-answered) so cavalierly, so I wrote back, "I tried typing 'What is the difference between sin and guilt?' into Ask.com but none of the links looked very useful. Sometime when you have the leisure you can enlighten me. (smile)" Memo: that was probably the wrong thing to say.
D's reply, several hours later, was slow and quiet and thoughtful. And it gave me a lot to wonder about. She wrote as follows:
I am made very quiet and still by your flippant handling of the difference between sin and guilt. Teary, in a way that other matters [the stuff we were bickering over] cannot begin to reach. This isn't a matter of enlightenment. Rather of experience, of knowing the price we pay for sin. A story? Maybe that will make it clear. Imagine a woman caught in an affair, someone like myself, whose husband is kind and loves her, and yet the person she's involved with is so much more exciting and stimulating. They meet after work, they go on brief holidays, they have a wonderful time. She considers leaving her husband, but there are two small children and she hesitates. She agonizes over the relationship, and finally decides to end it. The man she was seeing becomes a friend and nothing more, and her marriage, paradoxically is better than ever. Her husband never finds out and she is able to rejoin the family. The sin is over.
Yet she is unable to go on some days. The guilt she feels after betraying her most cherished ideals leaves her no peace, no consolation to be found. She is made miserable by guilt, guilt that remains hidden from the rest of the world, but the guilt that makes her feel like her entire life has been a lie. She realizes that the crack in the glass will not cause the vessel to shatter, but it can never be what it once was, as she can never be what she once was. The changes are real and she does not know how to live with them.
I think the crux of sin is right here. It's the damage within that threatens to disfigure us, and the ultimate challenge, it seems to me, is to understand this is precisely where God meets you. To hold on and agonize over the past is completely destructive and a denial of God's power to forgive and His ability to restore a person. It's not that we forget the sin; we don't. But we accept the changes and become someone different because of them. We find compassion, we stop judging so harshly, we do something extraordinary to make up for the sin we committed. We adopt children, we start foundations, we follow Jesus, understanding at last what he offers.
You might want to look at this distinction more carefully. You might not find it online, but you don't have to go far.
All my love,
D.
The Nibelung’s Ring: The Valkyrie 1
1 day ago
6 comments:
Wow, you two are analytical.
It seems to me the distinction is fairly straight-forward: a sin or sinning is an action whereas guilt is an emotion. Someone could feel guilt without having committed a sin or could sin without feeling guilt. The definition of a sin depends on a person's religious perspective of course. Since I do not believe in god I don't particularly believe in sin.
Anyway, that's my opinion. Perhaps I'm just not that deep!
And the first thing she does is to seduce him.
And the first thing he does is to be seduced.
And the second thing they do is to hug their sin in secret,
and gloat over it, and try to understand.
Which is the myth of New England.
D. H. Lawrence, Studies in Classic American Literature, 1923
I enjoyed your "flippant" comment, but I'm sorry it caused you grief. Do you feel guilty about it? Do you think it was a sin?
I'm guessing you almost certainly don't believe that your comment was sinful in the sense of a transgression of God's law (though some might argue that it is sinful simply because it hurt or offended someone else). But even if you don't think it was sinful, I wonder if you feel guilty about it? If so, that's interesting. In theory I don't think there should be "guilt" without sin, but in practice I know I feel guilty about any number of personal shortcomings.
But then, "you are to be perfect, just as your father in heaven is perfect" (possibly misquoted) so there is also the sense in which any shortcoming is a mark of our [original] sin.
In the end, I think Kyra pretty much summed it up. One can indeed "sin" and feel no guilt, and we can feel guilt over sins that a Pharisee would ignore.
Ummm, ... gosh, actually I have to admit that the whole discussion of sin and guilt was secondary to me. When I posted this piece, what caught my attention was D's portrayal of a woman who was so obviously modeled on her. I wondered if that was where she saw our relationship going.
In the end, it seems to be going in a very different direction, if only because she and her husband are divorcing. But for a while I did have to wonder ....
I had to read this again to see what your comment was regarding.
I can see how you (being deeply involved with her) would have been focused on the "Bridges of Madison County" side of the scenario - the sacrifice of the individual's core in order to avoid pain for others.
Yes, it's taken a different turn with her divorce. And yet, I still think in reading this again I am most struck by her definition of sin and guilt and (in a way) bemoaning your lack of understanding of it. To me it is the more compelling part of the discussion. She seems to be questioning your values or understanding of her as a person. And with what else I've read about you, I see no question of either.
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