Falling

Every joint in my body stiffened as I crawled out of bed this morning. Especially my shoulders. I never realized how much I take my shoulders for granted. Not today, though. They intensely punished me as I raised my arms to tie my hair up, to dress, to open and close the doors, to drive, and now, even after taking a couple of Advil, to type. The pain was so bad I nearly called off work today; but I knew that if I stayed home I would be in pain AND feel sorry for myself. So here I am, sitting at my desk, getting work done and not letting my body defeat me.

My terrible pain and stiffness is the repercussion of an embarrassing fall I took off the back steps Saturday afternoon. The pain gets worse after a couple of days before it gets better. I fortunately didn’t break any bones or suffer a more serious injury. I was still agile enough to turn a little bit to my left so I wouldn’t fall on my face. I’m not exactly sure how I lost my balance and fell, but I suspect it was a combination of the heat, the paint fumes (we were painting our garage) my general klutziness, and, most importantly, my being in a big hurry to get back outside after wasting about 20 minutes on a couple of Facebook applications.

Considering how much damage I could have done to myself, I decided that I need to not race down steps anywhere from now on. I've been thinking about how I landed--on my left hand, arm and side. As a guitarist, I depend on my arms and hands. Had I broken any bone in either one of my hands or arms, what would that have done to my music? My hands and arms are far to valuable to be lost to my carelessness.

As I look more deeply into my graceless swan dive into concrete, I realize that at the time, I could have just blamed something else. My back steps don’t have a hand rail; the steps have a slight lean; plus the back door sticks a little. And my husband hasn't put up a hand rail, leveled the back steps or fixed the back door. These thoughts never once crossed my mind, though, because I would have been laying the blame for my fall right on my husband. It's not his fault I'm a terrible klutz. Plus, making him my fall-fallguy doesn't change what happened, and would only hurt his feelings, or possibly tick him off.

I did, however, consider blaming the dog (don’t laugh, she was tied up right there in the back yard and lying beside the back steps). Would my husband have thought twice about the fact that Roxy, my rambunctious pit bull/lab mix, got underfoot and took me out? It was a definite probability, as she's up our butts every second of the day, and Roxy has clotheslined me several times with her runner leash. She loves to race across the yard to keep up with me wherever I happen to be walking. But as fast as the thought jumped into my mind, that’s how fast I dismissed it.

Blaming someone or something else doesn't erase the fact that I fell; it only causes more pain, more grief, more injury. Plus I would feel worse about myself, because I've now done something to hurt someone else (even the dog).

Isn’t this how it is with sin? We’re doing something that we shouldn’t be doing, and we fall. At first the damage is either not visible at all, or appears to be minor. It’s only when time passes that we really experience the damage caused by our sins. It's why when we go to confession, we pray an "act of contrition", where we resolve to make a conscious effort to avoid sin in the future.

But more importantly, I think, is how we react when we realize we have sinned. We have two choices. We can claim full responsibility, or we can find someone or something else to share the blame. Sure, we can try to convince ourselves that we aren't entirely at fault, if at all, and that by finding this other person/thing to blame, we're really acting out of a sense of justice. Ultimately, we're just rationalizing--saving face and feeding our pride at the expense of someone else. As time goes on, what would the constant shirking of responsibility do to our sense of self? Not to mention the fact that through unrepentent sinning we're killing our souls.

I suggest instead a complete examination of conscience. Periodical examinations of our attitudes and our behavior help us to pinpoint where we are most in danger of committing sin, thereby causing serious injury to our souls, which puts our souls at the risk of an eternity apart from God. That's what sin ultimately is, after all, an injury to our soul. There are several examinations available online (here is one to get you started). I know, it seems like a lot of work, almost as horrifying as that long put-off trip to the dentist; but I think union with God is worth the effort.