flawed

My cardinal sins are jealousy, faithlessness, and compulsion. They are really all one: fear. Fear could be my mortal sin. It is consuming, painful, confused, doubtful, shocking, and any number of things. I am afraid of dying and so I am afraid of living. I am afraid of believing and so I have trouble with faith. I am afraid of not getting recognition and so I am often poisonously jealous of those who do get recognition. The last venial sin, compulsion, is a feeble, ineffective, and yet also consumptive way of fending off the knawing fear.

But it is remarkable how much a wonderful thing can make me, in a light and dancing moment, feel forgiven of all my sins. And then the mortal sin of fear realizes that it is mortal, and dies.