"All are made in the image of God" (there is original blessing in the Bible, Legion), but all fall short of the glory of God.
We hear a lot about original sin these days, probably because it's easier to control people using fear of original sin. (If people get too confident about original blessing, then they won't need to kiss any religious authority's a..., I mean, ring.)
Each needs to balance the other. Original sin leads to feelings of unworthiness, which people can plug up with various addictions (including churchly sanctimony). Original blessing tempers that with an understanding of love. It brings about compassion--if we are all broken-but-whole, what is the basis of condemning another?
But, focusing too much on original blessing can lead to an "anything goes" morality. So blessing needs to be tempered also.
This is where I found common ground between my Catholic upbringing and my current Buddhist practice. At the center of the Heart Sutra is the insight that not only are good and evil opposite sides of the same coin, but that neither exists independently of the other. "Neither increasing nor decreasing, neither defiled nor immaculate" ... which Thich Nhat Hanh explains more simply in terms of flowers and garbage. The rose is the garbage, and the garbage is the rose. When the rose dies and decays, as everything does, it becomes garbage. When garbage fertilizes the flower bed, it becomes the rose. Why is one disgusting and the other beautiful? Because our consciousness fractures that deeper reality.
Buddhists say everyone has the capacity for enlightenment, but very few realize it fully. Sound familiar? All are made in the image of God, but all fall short of the glory of God.
In the middle of it, we live, and what we think is sin and what we think is blessing is ultimately not important.
hjh
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