Sin and the Divine Spark

I was having dinner with friends recently when the subject of military history came up, and then the conversation turned specifically to brutal rulers throughout history.

Someone mentioned that Stalin killed 15 million people during his rule, while Mao Tse Tung may have killed as many as 70 million people.

15 million. 70 million.

How can a person be capable of such violence? How can it really be possible that one person can have so much power, and use it for so much evil?

Sometimes the sinfulness of the world, and of human nature, seems overwhelming to me. There is so much evidence for the fundamental cruelty of human life.

And yet! And yet, I follow a faith that asserts that each human life has inherent worth and dignity.

ONE life has infinite value, infinite worth. One single life.

This too is real. I feel it when I talk to a friend, or loved one, or even a stranger. I feel their presence, the possibilities within them. I know they have an infinite value.

As John Donne wrote:

No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for me.

The bell tolling for each unjust death, each shocking act of brutality that ends a life, is not merely a painful reminder of sin. It is a reminder of the inherent worth of that life, the spark of divinity in that person which another so easily disregarded. Each time we hear those bells, we are called NOT to give in, to dehumanize ourselves or dehumanize others by seeing only the sin. We are called to recognize the sin, and yet again to recognize the value of each life.

How can the humankind both hold so much sin, and at the same time be precious, sacred, and infinitely valuable? I don’t know how this can be. And yet I see all around the evidence that we human beings are both sinful and infinite in value. I strive to hold this evidence in my heart, not being too hardened or too softened by it. And I struggle to let this understanding guide my actions in world, so that I neither turn away from grappling with the sinfulness in human nature, nor from celebrating the divine spark in every person.