"When I had journeyed half of our life's way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray."
-The Inferno

Over 700 years ago Dante penned these opening lines to The Divine Comedy. How often have we thought we were following a straight path but realized we were hopelessly lost? We glance around and evaluate the landscape to find we are in a shadowed forest unable to figure out how we managed to arrive in the first place. The path is plain and straight, it is the pilgrim who holds a broken compass. C. S. Lewis described it as, "rats in the cellar" and Gordon MacDonald as, "dragons that highjack our soul." But probably the best description of our dark underside is by the prophet Jeremiah, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it." (Jer. 17:9)

I believe many churches have actually done us a disservice by categorizing and cataloging sins. How often have we heard someone whisper that a fellow Christian has "fallen" as if some have actually risen above the vulnerability to have their souls high-jacked by dragons. Or worse, that some have been able to slay those dragons so that they cease their torment. The young Christian man who yields to a homosexual temptation is considered fallen. The Christian couple who divorces has fallen. The young girl in the teen group who has an abortion is fallen. We mentally compare and catalog and say because we have not yielded to these sins we are somehow more righteous. Pride, avarice, gluttony, lust, wrath, idleness, envy. Does the Christian community really dare to think they are not fallen because they can hide some sins more easily than others? The internal compass is broken and the dragons lurk just beneath the surface in every one of us. My hope is that we will be transparent about who we are, honest about where we are, and sincere about what we seek. It is only then that we will be able to encourage and truly help each other with our burdens as we make this pilgrimage.