Last weekend I had a reminder in real life about the meaning of the word “sin.”

In my 20’s and 30’s, I struggled with the Judeo-Christian emphasis on sin. I was doing my best to be a thoughtful, conscientious person finding my way in my young life. To go to church and be told to confess “how I’ve been bad” felt just plain strange. Or wrong. Offensive, actually. I had a hard time reconciling my deep love of God and all the things I heard at church that rang true with the recurring emphasis on how much of a “sinner” I was (along with all humankind).

Later in life, after I awakened, I understood the emphasis on “sin.” But I also came to see that there’s a place and a time to worry about sin. The time when sin becomes meaningful is after you’ve declared the “I Am” at Stage 3. Prior to that, as you’re struggling to define who you are, the notion of sin is confusing and demoralizing. It’s not a helpful message when you’re trying to gain confidence, not lose it.

Then enter last weekend, with a gentle reminder in the here-and-now about sin and the persistent benevolence beneath its message.

I was attending the wedding of a friend I have known for (gulp) forty years. Over those many years I had become very close not just with her but with her family – who all attended the wedding, too. The reunion brought a sweet and quiet, ecstatic relief like from drinking water after a long, parched fast.

The weekend started for me on Sunday morning where I was to meet Mary Ann, my friend’s mother, at church. When I’d heard she would be attending the service, I sprang at the chance to worship in communion with her and help her get to the next pre-wedding event. To meet at church seemed perfect, as our relationship was rooted strongly in our shared love of God.

Soon enough, Mary Ann bobbed into the narthex. We rushed to throw our arms around each other for the first time in a decade.

“Oh, my stars!” she sang out, “You are the most beautiful creature! You look just like an angel!”

I couldn’t help but laugh. I remembered hearing those exact words, cried out in just same way upon our very first meeting, forty years before. At the time, I’d been a pimply-faced high school junior and this woman had been a complete stranger to me. I had encountered her in the stairwell of my new dormitory. I was going down to get more boxes from the car; she was coming up with a suitcase, and there in the middle on the landing was her daughter, my new roommate, whom I had only just met in our new room. Seeing us converge on the stairs, her daughter had sought to make an introduction: “Mom, this is my roommate,” she said.

“Oh, my STARS!” As Mary Ann responded, her southern accent rang sharply in the stairwell. “You are the most beautiful CHILE! You look just like an AYNgel!”

At fifteen years old, I had never been greeted in such a way – at all, let alone with such passion by a stranger. My stomach dropped as I figured I was in for a very strange year.

So to hear the same words replayed, yes, I did laugh. I said, “Mary Ann, do you know those were the very first words you ever said to me?” I laughed again. A great big belly laugh, “And I thought you were the weirdest woman I’d ever met!” In making the remark, I was laughing at myself.

But something didn’t feel right. Was it the shyness of a reunion after a long time? The discomfort of being flattered? Why had I reacted the way I had? The service would be starting soon. My husband and I guided Mary Ann up front (where she could hear) and into a pew.

As we knelt our heads to pray, I felt “ew” inside. Here I had just seen my beloved Mary Ann for the first time in a decade, and I’d responded to her compliment with a laugh and a quip about how I thought she was so weird when I first met her. Ha ha ha.

The service continued. The hymns, the readings, the sermon, the chance to reflect. I thought about how, yes, surely, Mary Ann was hyperbolic by nature. Yet her ability to see the best of me clearly and reflect it back had profoundly guided my life. At several forks in my spiritual road I’d found my way only because of her support. From Day 1, she had always seen me as an angel. She’d seen my inner worth and held it up to me like a mirror constantly and faithfully enough for me to finally find it directly within myself.

I thought of Saint Augustine, a 4th century Christian mystic. I had just been reading his writings the week before as I was asking for guidance on next steps in my life. Augustine had written, “Give thanks, then, and embrace what has been given you so that you may be worthy to enjoy what you are called to.” Augustine quoted Psalms (115:11), “Every man is a liar,” and Ephesians (4:25) “laying aside the lie, speak the truth,” to make the point that to be anything less than the best we are capable of being – the likeness of God – is a lie. To be the likeness of God is to fulfill God’s intention for us. It is to be what we are (at Stage 6).

Thus I realized, right there sitting in the pew at the 10:00 service, the purest, simplest definition of sin. Sin is the disregard and discrediting of God’s creation, and of our place in God’s creation. When I laughed at Mary Ann’s remark, I might as well have been spitting on her love of me, and on the qualities she was seeing in me. Qualities that God had created.

It struck me also that this understanding of sin is very much like how the Koran describes an “infidel”: someone who has forgotten the truth of Allah and become ungrateful. In that moment, yes, I had been an infidel. I had forgotten the truth of Mary Ann’s and God’s love for me. I had been ungrateful to that love. A simple, “Thank you” to Mary Ann, an acknowledgment to God who made it all happen, and offering Mary Ann a hug would have been a much more appropriate response.

When it came time to recite the Confession of Sin from the Book of Common Prayer, I spoke it from a very immediate place. I also apologized to Mary Ann after the service concluded. Then it was her turn to laugh. She said my remark hadn’t bothered her, but she was glad if I felt I had learned something. “You know, we learn so much more from our mistakes than our successes,” she chirped.

Then we went on to enjoy the weekend festivities. Fully. Gratefully.

God bless you, Mary Ann. As always, my teacher, holding up the mirror. Let her be a mirror to you, too. What are the places in your life where God, directly and/or through others, is smiling on you? Are you receiving this grace gratefully?