Writing/Cancer Journal #109

 Charlie Schaefer

September, 2024

What is Sin?

Failure to brush my teeth twice daily?

Not staying hydrated with at least 80 ounces of fluid each day? 

Failure to check in on a relative whose health is failing but is also a bore?  

Getting warm with that one.

Dumping oil from an oil change out in the woods?  

That’s a bad one which I would never do.

Especially since I don’t change my own oil.  

The Old Testament prescription for sin–sacrifice of a pigeon, a sheep, a bullock-

hardly seems as though it would do the trick, bring the ledger to balance. 

The Catholic confessional followed by some Our Fathers and some Hail Marys seems better.  Confession, if done honestly, requires the dark thing be pulled out of the pocket and examined. 

 And the Our Fathers, Hail Marys could be a source of pleasure

 if the obligation element is minimized.  Put your mind in a good place.

But I am skirting around the edges, leaving the ugly center untouched.

 I must not try to kid myself; I know what sin is.

Me in 8th grade art class with a teacher who sees me as having promise.

There is a field trip to see a special Monet collection at the Art Institute.

A high status kid sits with me on the way over and we hit it off. 

At the museum, High Status and I hang back,

making funny, dismissive comments about the class, the teacher and Claude Monet. 

I avoid the looks of reproach and disappointment from the teacher

and I do not engage with Monet.

That is what sin is like and I am a sinner.

Here is my writing group submission for September. Had some misunderstanding regarding it. The group treated it as a sort of recollection of an event from early adolescence that I felt guilty about. I was assured that they had all done that sort of thing themselves and that I should go a little easier on myself. I didn't really get the chance to explain that this never happened to me and that I had made it up as a metaphor to say that I would characteristically opt for the day-o-day mundane over the really great thing which in my example was high art but in my life was the transcendent. In casting around for a good way to express this, I came up with this 8th grader example which was purely imaginary. Actually, High Status never sat down beside me in 8th grade. If he had, I would most likely have behaved as I have me behave here but anyway.

In thinking about it, I wonder how it could have been misunderstood. There is the use of the present tense combined with a setup in which I express the intention of getting at what sin is. My example may have been too good. It may have resonated so fundamentally that it overshadowed recognition that we have a metaphor going on here.

I also wonder why I didn't make clear what was going on here. The room was so full of words that it was hard to get said what I would have to say. Ant then, I feel a little funny spelling out the real meaning of my metaphor.