Reforming (phase 1), Existential Experience of the History of Salvation (step 4), session 6

And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it. saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes." - Lk 19, 41-42

I still don't know if I'm doing this step right. But I find that consideration of my personal sin as a component of the sin of the whole world is a useful thing for me, in multiple ways.

• It makes me less surprised at things that have many of those around me shocked. "How could they" - whomever the "they" of the current story is - "do such an awful thing?"  Well, how can I be surprised that the accumulated effect of sin in the world has led us to such extremes? In fact, I've been wondering in recent days: how much of a spiritually binding effect does the widespread tolerance of sinful behavior have on our world?
• It makes me less judgmental of others. Of course, I had an element of this good trend in my life already simply because . . . but to see all of our sin as connected helps me to live that not-supposed-to-be-a-cliché more effectively: hate the sin, but love the sinner. How can I not feel compassion for the sinner if the whole world's sinfulness is interrelated?

Okay, that's a lot of rhetorical questions for a short reflection. But I find that this reading fits right in with my heartache over the brokenness I see in my own family.