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| Dedicated runner (me) in Belle Vernon cemetery, late 70’s |
We
practiced examining our conscience before going to confession when
fourth and fifth grades came. Basically, assigned a copy of the Ten
Commandments, we mulled over them one by one. My hardest of all was:
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. I certainly didn’t, but the
Catholics listed sub-points under the big point. “Impure thoughts”
logically followed as a major sub-heading, and this complicated a lot of
things.
Outspokenly,
a million things could have comprised an “impure thought,” and since
self-examination was a subjective exercise, I ended up confessing these 9
or 10 times per, and even more. Somehow, this variety of sin extracted
more guilt than other sins. As we moved to 6th and 7th grades, it became
impractical to repeatedly confess these kinds of sins; we had reached
pure evil now, I guess.
Moses
delivered, to the children of Israel, a Law-code and a sense of
national Identity. This was a set up, which I still cannot reconcile.
They were entrusted with the Law as custodians, but, knowing they could
never live up to the moral side of it, felt that somehow they must. A
compromise had to be made by these people, so, once trapped by it all,
they sought out the middle of the road. What else could they have done?
I
met an Amish-born guy while riding in the buggy at Lancaster
Pennsylvania. He was born into an Amish family but when he was of age,
defected. Amish are very strict separatists and very legalistic. Anyhow,
my new friend told us he stayed away for a while, but recently
returned. We asked him if he had rejoined the faith and he said “no.”
His explanation was that his family received him back in because he was
their flesh and blood. He was given a job buggy driving to make a living
while staying at home.
He
sure looked like a real Amish, (garb, hat and beard), but I am so glad
he told us the story. This is maybe how the Jews did it; all are
accepted because of flesh and blood lineage, and if you are into the
religion thing, all the better. A lot of religion, not all, is faked.
What strings them along? A sense of family tie, tradition, and the
awesome ethnic food pantry at the back of the church are some of the
first causes—the religious gene, maybe? Naivete and sincerity rank in there pretty high too, and so does getting a boyfriend or spouse etc.
Others
of us stayed away when we had our exodus from Law saturated religion,
and started smoking, doing drugs and drinking. All that family affinity
stuff remained attractive to us, however, with its argument of promising
a better life. I never wanted to be a phony (on purpose anyway) and;
well, you can see how a person can get sucked in to the wild side. Maybe
this is the explaining of how the motions of sin are by the law in
Romans 7, and maybe this is why the Bible teaches the strength of sin is
in the law in I Corinthians 15.
Trying to follow the Moral Law
became so repulsive to me that I think I set out to prove, as a life
task, why it can’t be done. The frustration and double-mindedness of it
brought only despair. How can life be so unanswerable? How can life make
no sense, with some hating it for this, but others (the liars) seem to
do OK with it? The whole point of my pre-Christian life was trying to
make life make sense; but it never did.
It evolved a matter
of endlessly changing faces, inventing new tunes, trying on new clothes
and always working toward something, but sometimes just letting it all
go to hell and challenging death to step up the pace. It was much more
fun to go wild than play the game, which makes me wonder when I am
driving my car how many of my fellow drivers are letting their hair hang
down tonight. (At these times I wish all were being fakers and trying
to watch the road).
Next
point is this; the do-bees all start looking down their proverbial
noses at the don’t-bees. Part of what it means to be hokey is the
propensity to mock the weirded out ones. This is the infamous plight of a
society groping for some getting along, while blaming the other guys
for not conforming to “us” guys. “Dose people can’t get it right and
‘dey’ is screwing it up for all of us guys.” God’s law is parceling out
civil insanity but somebody still feels the need to say; let’s try to
work it out, after all we are all adults here.
Ha,
ha what a joke; the charlatans are battling it out again with the
devil-may-care crowd. The quacks are fighting with the rakehell reckless
and that church is picketing the porn theater at the end of the block.
When
goody-two-shoes starts to snarl at the homeless beggar we may have a
Pharisee. He thanks God he is not like this other man, because he tithes
and walks old women across the street in the rain, laying his coat over
the puddle. He also spends a lot of his time finding out all the bad
stuff about you; just wants the betterment of mankind.
These
boys can preach up a hell fire and damnation sermon (of course none of
the decadents are attending) sweat pouring down from their brow as they
motion for a handkerchief. Worse, they may be so angered with those who
will not submit, that larger measures are taken. I’ve heard of some
churches where the sinners have to sit in the back (at least they aren’t
excommunicated yet) and may get a chance to move up as they do better.
On
the other side of the street some may be raising the peace sign (two
fingers) as they are singing about starting a revolution. Hatred rages
and electric guitars are broken up or set on fire as women swoon and the
smell of hashish is in the air.
The
funniest one to me is when the long-haired shirtless hell-raising
guitar smashers have a concert to help the poor victims of the
hurricane. I hope the money is selectively distributed to only the
wild-side victims in these cases.
Dispair of life can be a great beginning. God looks for these types. A broken and contrite heart, He will not despise; thank you Lord.