As a therapist who lives in the south, in the heart of the Bible Belt, I see many clients who come from conservative, Christian backgrounds. And while faith can be a source of healing and insight for so many, it is also astounding to see how much guilt, shame, and self-loathing is birthed within the confines of religious institutions...and subsequently lands in the therapeutic space.
As I've worked with clients around the process of discovering their unique identity and waking up to their lives, these themes of guilt, shame, and self-loathing are some of the greatest barriers to the process of healing and transformation. For those coming from conservative, Christian backgrounds, this struggle seems to be embodied in the narrative of "original sin", which goes something like this: Adam and Eve are created and live in a beautiful garden, they eat a rotten apple even though God told them not too, and now all of us humans are SOL and cursed for life, doomed to wallow in all of our awfulness. Fast forward thousands and thousands of years, and pulpits around the world resound with words like "sinful", and "depravity", and "wickedness", and pastors preach sermons about how we should never get to know ourselves or trust ourselves because what we would discover would be bad, bad, wicked, evil, BAD.
That's pretty damn grim.
What is interesting is that while all of us church-goers are told that we are morally and ethically corrupt from birth because of that one darn apple, the Bible (if this is a relevant text for you) never actually uses the term "original sin". Like, not once, ever. In fact, what the Bible first says about the creation of humankind is that we are inherently GOOD. That we are BLESSED. That we are created in the image of the divine. The very first mention of us humans goes something like this: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, in our likeness...' So God created humankind in God's own image, in the image of God, they were created; male and female, God created them. God BLESSED them...God saw all that God had made, and it was...(wait for it)...VERY GOOD." Very Good. Very divine. Very blessed. Very holy. Very creative. Very unique. Very lovely. Very precious. Very beautiful. Very, very Good.
Matthew Fox and Fr. Richard Rohr turn the "original sin" narrative on it's head when they unpack the idea of Original Blessing. In their work, they deconstruct much of this guilt-based rhetoric and begin rebuilding Christianity from a new foundation. This new foundation centers on blessing and goodness as the bedrock of creation. As a mental health practitioner, the implications of this new foundation are profound. If we could start from a place of goodness, what a transformation we would see! This is not to say that humans don't mess up every day. We do! We hurt each other, we hurt ourselves, we make bad choices, we operate out of fear, we suffer, we experience pain, we mess up, we eat rotten apples, and tragedy and trauma unfold. This is all true, and our theology and psychology should make room for this. The therapeutic space should be a place to work through the implications of suffering honestly and compassionately.
But if we could start from a place of blessing, of divinity, of goodness, of joy, of whimsical creativity, how different life could be! If we preached about abundant life, and the beauty of creation, and how each unique human being has a God-shaped thumbprint right smack-dab in the middle of their souls leftover from when they were carefully, intentionally crafted, I firmly believe that we would see a drop in depression rates, anxiety rates, isolation, fear, etc.
My calling centers on this task: in the midst of immense suffering, may I help my clients rediscover this Original Blessing, which is the gift of their precious, beautiful, and blessed lives.