California Dreamin': The Spiritual Exercises of an Expatriate German
by Alexander Niessen
Where do I begin? How is it that I 'm surrounded by all these men who do not talk to each other? Instead, they listen attentively to a man with a strong French accent who lectures us on primary responsibility and the basis of human life. I am a expatriate German living in California, a lay Catholic who grew up in the 70’s and 80’s -- ‘Generation X,’ I suspect -- and I have never heard of these things.
What is ‘Sin’?
There's something in your heart of hearts that screams that you're doing something fundamentally wrong with your life. It seems like it is human nature. Theologians would call this the "Moral Law."
First, it’s a small discomfort that you can still easily ignore, like a spider's web that you simply wipe away. But it always comes back, this discomfort and it is growing every day, until you finally realize that what is bothering you is not a discomfort but, ‘sin.’
Sin. Every morning you wake up with the feeling. It was not there before in your life and now it troubles you every day. Many people in Germany or indeed all over the western world are perhaps not even aware of this damage – the small and large scratches on your once so-pure soul.
We do not talk about sin in the Western world. Sin is medieval. Sin is in the past. Sin cannot harm us; we know everything -- science and vague feelings keep our lives in balance and so can explain everything and make
life bearable.
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