a travelogue
When I was young, my favorite book was Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles . In one short story called “The Fire Balloons” a group of missionary priests who were going to Mars worried about how they would recognize sin in creatures that were so different from us. Would different limbs mean different sins? I thought that was an odd question. Though I hadn’t read her yet, Julian of Norwich speaks well of what I felt: you know sin by the pain it causes. I thought Christian missionary would not go to Mars to
Original sin is an important doctrine that points out, among other things, that we are not quite right. As St. Paul says, “I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:8-9). Our passions are at war within us. This is our own fault, not God’s. It indicates something broken within us, which all the therapy and perfect upbringing in the world cannot fix. Only God’s grace can heal this wound.