I take back *some* of what I've said about Augustine.

St. Augustine wrote this lovely prayer, which the great Marty Haugen put to beautiful music. We sang it every Lenten Wednesday at my home BLC, and this week at Hope we sang it as well. Haven't been able to get it out of my head since. There's no recording on YouTube (what a shocker -- liturgical music is usually so popular hahaha) so here are just the lyrics. I hope you know it and then get it stuck in your head. Or maybe just know that you're part of it.

Watch, oh Lord, with all those awake this night.
Watch, oh Lord, with all those who weep.
Give your angels and saints charge over all who sleep.

Tend your ailing ones in your love, Lord.
Rest your weary ones in your love, Lord.
Bless your dying ones in your love, oh Lord of all.

Soothe your suffering ones in your love, Lord.
Heal afflicted ones in your love, Lord.
Shield your joyous ones in your love, oh Lord of all.

Hold your grieving ones in your love, Lord.
Raise your fallen ones in your love, Lord.
Mend your broken ones in your love, oh Lord of all.

Guard your little ones in your love, Lord.
Guide your searching ones in your love, Lord.
Grant us all your peace in your love, oh Lord of all.

Watch, oh Lord, with all those awake this night.

Watch, oh Lord, with all those who weep.

Give your angels and saints charge over all who sleep.

Amen.

Sin, I guess.

Today in History of Christianity we were talking about St. Augustine, so obviously we were talking about sin. For the fortunate non-Augustine-scholars out there, Augustine was a monk who was obsessed with sinfulness, particularly his. He wrote a book called "Confessions" where he basically lists everything he ever did that he is ashamed of and can't get over. Mostly he chronicles his sexual misdeeds, which I'm totally not trying to read about. My favorite, though, is when he goes on for pages about this incident in his childhood where he and some friends threw pears at pigs. And how he feels SO BAD about it and how it was SO SINFUL and it makes you want to hit him over the head with his own book.

Our conversation got a lot more interesting than Augustine's stupid confessions, though. One of my classmates raised the question as to why we got rid of the "degrees" of sin that Catholics have -- venial and mortal. Venial sins are like white lies -- nothing major, but still not awesome. Whereas mortal sins are seemingly the ones you go to hell for. Unless you confess them, of course. Mortal sins are the ones concerning "grave matters" (according to the catechism), and you have to know it's against the rules and do it anyway, voluntarily. So, mortal sins are definitely worse. But we Protestants were like, "Sin is sin, man" and moved on from that point. My classmate was upset that someone who shoplifts and someone who tortures a child in the basement (her examples) are sinning equally.

Under the United States Constitution, those people are not committing equal crimes. They will suffer vastly different consequences. The thing about God is that she is the great equalizer. Where one person sees justice, another sees injustice. That happens. But God sees all as equal, and works it out in her own way. We get in these arguments because we, as humans, want to see other humans punished. This validates all the times we have been punished. But when it comes to God's forgiveness, I'd like to see others forgiven, in order to assure myself of my forgiveness. So it's sort of the opposite.

I think that Lutherans have a much easier time with this whole sin idea, because our foundation is in grace. Our foundation is not in works-righteousness or in guilt. It's grace freely given, without our even consenting to receive it. That rules so hard. We can throw pears at pigs all we want and never have to write books about it.