Legislating Righteousness

Many of the people in my generation grew up believing that it was a sin to dance, to drink a beer, to put a coin in a slot machine or buy a lottery ticket (well, they didn't have lottery tickets in my day but any kind of gambling was just "wrong"). Sometimes...if not commonly, opinions or beliefs become "laws". And when the error is discovered, instead of correcting the error..."adjustments" are made.

A good example...in the state of Oklahoma you can buy liquor..but not at a convenience store...they are limited to 3.2 % beer. So the beer they sell in convenience stores in Texas or Arkansas can be full strength...the beer companies have to make a separate product for Oklahoma and a few other states. Now you CAN buy whiskey or even full strength beer in Oklahoma...but only in a liquor store. Don't plan on bringing your lunch if you work in a liquor store though, unless its a lunch that doesn't need the icebox...no refrigerators are allowed, you can not buy full strength beer, or wine refrigerated. But thats not to say you can't buy a "frozen margarita"...you can, but not in a convenience store or liquor store...for that you must go to a restaurant/club.

What a crazy bunch of laws. Spin offs from the prohibition being repealed, but people thinking they gotta keep stuff under control to some degree!! Surely everybody realizes readily that if liquor stores were permitted to sell a refrigerated products...alcoholism would immediately spread like wildfire throughout the entire state of Oklahoma. And isn't it a total mystery how people are still able to be convicted of drunk driving with 3.2 beer? Does anybody actually believe that the 3.2 law is keeping somebody from becoming drunk? It just means it takes 7 beers to equal 6 regular beers... not much difference but it appeased some lawmaker or voting group at some point.

In all our opinions about what is "right" and "wrong" according to the Bible and making laws accordingly...do we realize that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, and a host of the great men of God in days gone by would today be locked up and charged with felony bigamy? That is true though...The teachings against polygamy don't come from the scriptures...even though the law is meant to be a "righteous" one, its actually derived from traditions established in the Romans days. But of course wouldn't Jesus Himself have been put in jail for making wine for the wedding or is that legal without a special license...the D.A. would have to decide that one.

If we really could ever see truth with both eyes open...wonder what all we would find we've really really screwed up in our misunderstandings? I'm mindful of the fact that it was the "cream of the crop" righteousness wise...that deemed Jesus to be so wrong when it came to obeying God that they yelled for His crucifixion. Absolutely amazing...but don't be discouraged. So even if we finally get our glasses cleaned and can see real truth, what God ACTUALLY DOES SAY...would we think Him Unrighteous? Ya, That is what John 1:1-18 says happened. Just amazing.

Personally I still believe we can know what the Bible actually says or doesn't say, but I also think it is VERY difficult to see it with our culturally trained presuppositions we wear like reading glasses. I can't help but wonder how very very different our life would be if we laid aside the foggy glasses and had plain pure truth. Would we like it? Or would we react like the Islamics who also think they know what is what and feel so strong about it they chop off body parts of offenders.

Yet it is my opinion that Truth is intended to be Known, comprehended, understood...I don't accept the lazy reaction of.."who can know it" or "who is to say this is right or this is wrong"..I have no doubt that in that good old book called "the Bible" we can find the truth. But do we really want to know it? Can we handle it?

AN EASY CHRISTMAS PLAN

Lots of family coming? Feel like you want to buy gifts for everybody but the family is so big now, and there isn't really anything "NEEDED" by anybody gift-wise..Heres how to do it. Everybody brings a gift. A spending limit is set and MUST be strictly adhered to, Don't go over the maximum unless you just want to make people feel bad. A common limit is $20 or $30. You bring just one gift, for each person that comes there is one gift. When everybody gets the gifts there, the gifts are counted, make a number for as many gifts on cut small squares and mixed up in a hat/bowl. As it goes around each person draws a paper and the person with #1 goes to the table and selects a wrapped gift, then #2..etc. After the gifts are all handed out . Its time to open them and keep or trade. Everybody has fun, everybody leaves with a gift, and the next day....no credit card interest starting to eat away at next years income.

(Now children still at home of course can participate, but Santa still brings theirs in the night).

captured the thoughts for the day

"Just take a few weeks off."
"yeah that would be really good, but...can't afford to take a few weeks off just yet...those are weeks without pay....plus, that puts a strain on the resources the company has for handling substitution....which in turns puts pressure on my coworkers cause they can't get relief or off and they may really have needed it for something traumatic. "

Where is your flow chart?

In the early 80's in "introduction to structured programming" ('basic plus' was the operating language being learned.) the teacher disdained that I did not do "flowcharts"...or that when I did do them, I did so only because I had been compelled to turn one in, and it was inevitably produced AFTER I had written the program, and was a reflection of exactly what the program did...but based on empirical observation, not in creative forethought in the outlay of the design. Little did I know at that point in life the serious significance of this defect.


In high school wood-shop, same trouble...I was building the object when the teacher walked up wanting to see the plans. They are in my head, being created as I go. Not acceptable, but the teacher had many students and usually a distraction got me out of the tedious task of going back to the desk and creating a plan.

It was some three decades later in life before it hit me one day that my problem in life was exactly the same as in that computer class, or shop class. I'm not designing it then following the plan...I'm so busy figuring out the plan as I go...its easier just to tell what i did , when i get done. This, despite horrifically hard working sacrificial efforts, has not succeeded in a comfortable, secure, relaxing existence financially speaking. And while it has offered many enjoyed jobs and chores thru the years, it is now in later years when I am already wishing that I did not "have to" work so hard and at so near entry level of a position.

It is now that I'm trying to figure out what to do to get out of this rat race a bit and spend more time at home, and not as demanding of my energy. And I'm discovering...how that all along, and definitely at least now...a plan needs to exist, a "flow chart" that leads to it..a strategy and a work-list...or step by step....and moving towards it as surely as assembling an unassembled bookcase. I need to be so familiar with the flowchart along the journey that when I reach each desired goal, it is with the feeling of deja vu simply because I've had this in my mind all along the way (just like knowing what the bookcase is to look like).

Ahhh...If I live to be old, I'll have living figured out. Maybe.