When a group of individuals with a shared history of trauma isolates itself from those outside their group — either by proximity or genetics — even when in a genuine effort of self-preservation, that shared trauma is handed down generation after generation with no chance of diversity of history, culture, or beliefs being able to dilute those traumas.
In their effort to preserve and survive, the same wounds, the same unresolved pain severely limit both their personal and collective growth. Not out of malice. Not even from conscious intention. But out of the only knowledge they have.
This is the essence and meaning of the "sins of the father" lesson. It wasn't a condemnation of or lesson in morality. It wasn't just metaphorical. It's molecular. It's in the very cells of our being.
Because we know now that this is not merely behavioral. Science has confirmed through epigenetics that trauma changes the methylation of DNA itself — altering the physiology of the person who lived it, and passing those changes forward through multiple generations. The wound isn't just remembered. It is inherited. Written into the body before the child ever draws their first breath.
The Record
Consider the child who is born into or grows up in war. That trauma is like a scratch on a vinyl record: and every time his life reaches that same moment in the song, no matter what scene is playing out in the story of his life — if the scratch is deep enough — the record doesn't play through. It catches. It loops. It spins in place: Over and over and over again.
The wound isn't just remembered. It is inherited. Written into the body before the child ever draws their first breath. — Terry L. Holliday
But even worse is the world never gets to hear the full beauty of the "song," or the message the whole "record" was always meant to play. Yet the record is not ruined. The record was never the scratch. The scratch happened to the record. In truth, the original song is still there. The record is still whole and has value. Still waiting to be played, enjoyed, and appreciated by others. All it needs is a way to bridge the gap across that scratch.
And that can only happen by one of two ways: Either the "needle" is carried over the damage by the help of another — past the loop, into the song that was always there waiting on the other side, where "troubles melt like lemon drops," and the "dreams you dare to dream really do come true."
Or the person carrying that scratched record around accepts grace and heals from within — restoring the song to a new beauty, but still with its original message and purpose.
The Salamander
Just like the salamander whose DNA knows it's supposed to have a tail. It was designed perfectly with a tail. It can't swim or survive without it.
But when its tail is damaged or removed entirely by a predator, it doesn't wait for another salamander to give it a new tail or help find one. It heals itself by growing a new tail, not by trying to attach the old one — because that's the way it used to be.
The first is rescue. The second is resurrection.
Behold. I make all things new.
Trust & Obey
To get the point of Jesus' message you had to have faith — believe in the unseen, the unprovable, the unknown. That was exploited by the very same power-hungry people who Jesus railed against 2000 years ago. With my lifetime of evidence that is unshakable to the most skeptical — including myself. I've spent an entire lifetime trying to prove what I knew to be true to be false. Looking for a reason to explain the unexplainable.