January 20
Posted: January 20, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized 3 Comments »Don’t run up debts, except for the huge debt of love you owe each other. When you love others, you complete what the law has been after all along. The law code—don’t sleep with another person’s spouse, don’t take someone’s life, don’t take what isn’t yours, don’t always be wanting what you don’t have, and any other “don’t” you can think of—finally adds up to this: Love other people as well as you do yourself. You can’t go wrong when you love others. When you add up everything in the law code, the sum total is love. Romans 13:8-10 The Message
As a child, sitting in the paneled den at my grandparent’s home, reading out of an encyclopedic-sized series of commentaries on scripture, it was easy to get the message that godly people needed to be good people.
As a teacher of youth, there was always plenty to teach. Talking about behaving better to a group of tenth grade boys does not require a lot of creative brain power. They are living, breathing, walking examples of why we adults feel the urge to follow behind them and yell admonitions and warnings of impending doom if they do not change their ways. (Lugging along first aid kits for them, and defibrillators for ourselves.)
As a parent, I want my children to reduce their risk of acquiring a list of offenses that will hinder the fulfillment of their potential.
As a semi-regular visitor in the prison system in our state, I understand that the thin barbed wire that separates prisoners from visitors is indeed, extremely thin. Most offenders in the penal system have committed non-violent offenses – often related to the desperation and survival instincts associated with poverty, addiction, and too little hope. A few wrong choices, a couple of stupid decisions – and each of us could find ourselves behind bars. That’s the truth of it. Mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives sit behind bars each and every day. Once they are out, if you run into them at Walmart, these women will remind you of yourself. They have kids to feed too.
I leave my times in the prison with a strong urge to phone my children and remind them of the risks of breaking the law.
Behaving within the confines of the laws of the land is both scriptural and recommended. In many ways, spirituality is simple. It’s ordinary. It requires us to not spend more money than we make; we need to get a job and pay our bills; we need to avoid abusive relationships; we need to not take stuff that isn’t ours. Spirituality is not complicated or particularly special – it is taking one next right step after another. If this is true, why is it so hard to actually do?
why is it so hard to behave within the confines of the law – both God’s amd man’s…what a good question. In this new year I have come to see – yet again – that I don’t always live life so well or consistently. You know, I operate in fits and starts. I’m way past looking for perfection. As the song goes, “I want to be like Jesus in my heart.” I know and love someone who served some time behind bars – we are kin, not just by birth but by our struggle to work life out on our own terms and a long family history of addiction which look so much alike it’s tough to tell one thing from the other at times. Back to your question – answering for myself…I think I make it hard, I complicate my life and others – when I fail to live by: I have what I need and focus on behaving on what I want.
I guess for me, becoming a parent has been very instructional.
It has helped me appreciate God’s love – even his discipline and
sometimes even his anger.
I remember the learn-to-crawl stage, and how we crowed with pleasure
when our babies managed to get on all fours (except for one who never learned
to crawl…he sat and scooted, using his legs like oars). Sheesh, an observer would have
thought these babies were evolutionary first timers born from slithering snake stock.
My friends very graciously let me do the same, decades later, with their grand babies and I find my powers to delight in new, fit and start beginnings undiminished in my advancing age…oh, how the God of perfect love must cheer us on too! t
thanks for encouraging me. i see some of my fits and starts as developmental, some as my stubborn resistance, some as insanity, some as living in states of denial, some as sin – it is good to remember that all can be messy and is covered with God’s perfect parenting eye of love and grace. i guess i don’t see myself as a spiritual baby and perhaps i am in some regard. when i watch babies take steps and learn new things they often show signs of frustration and this is in keeping with development, is it not?