There’s No Such Thing As A Sinner

Some of us turn to the Sun and strum over our bodies in the shape of a rood. We play hymns over our hearts, passed down and over our DNA for generations.

Some of us turn to the moon and pluck lavender from our gardens — naked and howling. We write love songs to the low-hung clouds, as we sniff in a tidal wave that never was, along with the skin of an unfound planet home to yet nameless life, along with a hummingbird’s hiccup, all in a gust of wind. All in one inhale, we fill our hearts with the humid air, only hardly conscious of why exactly it makes us feel so full.

Some of us, move about only as much as we must to be able to spend the rest of our lives sitting, cross-legged, cross-eyed, our consciousness streaming across nebulae. Embodying everything — inclusive of nothing.

And most of us, we’re never really sure who or what we’re holding up so high. But despite this, we concede. With certainty, not always in God, but in our worship, however it is we worship, we worship.

We’re never really sure who or what we’re holding up so high.

And then, some of us won’t cross anything except that crossroad that leads to that one spot where you can get dope for ten a gram. We kick our leather feet through concrete dust and ash and scream “BURN IT ALL TO HELL!” as we tip our cups and the crown of our heads backward in a contrary bow.

And we scream to whom exactly?

Well, we’re not really sure who or what we’re holding up so high that we’re trusting that they could burn it all to hell. … We’re not really sure how high we’ve got to get to figure that one out. But despite this, despite our best efforts to flip the mountaintop upside-down and into a syringe, our subconscious concedes, and we, too, worship.

We may run to God or with wolves, by the light of violet flames, or into concrete caves, we may run however we like, but we may not outrun our mortal allegiance to worship, bringing us to our knees someway. Somehow. However it is, we worship.

Hannah Arin is a junior at Pitzer College pursuing a double major in religious studies and philosophy.