My CMS The View from a New City

I just read some lines of poetry by Brenda Shaughnessy that reminded me of a lesson I learned while serving as Bishop.

Here is the poetry:
Who was I kidding? Even in my private diary
I performed myself to an audience of one, no one.

A stock character playing to an empty house,
though I’d no theater experience at all.

I lied outright, wrote daydreams as if true,
was all knowing and exquisite, simultaneously

the worst person ever to have lived. Adolescence
is all absolutes: if bad, one must be the very worst

to avoid being mistaken for average.
To be ordinary was just being invisible,

and surely slow naked death by ants hurts less that that.

Here is the lesson:
Contrary to the opinion of many, especially young people, sin does not damn you. Sin is something to be overcome. Refusing to repent is what damns. Sin is a universal human experience. It is what you do about it that matters.

More poetry by James Thompson:

Once in a saintly passion I cried with desperate grief,”O Lord, my heart is black with guile,Of sinners I am chief.”Then stooped my guardian angel And whispered from behind,”Vanity, my little man,You’re nothing of the kind.”

In my old age I am of the opinion that it is not necessarily bad to be average. God has a plan for all his children.