I have found myself in some interesting situations in my life. From time to time, if I pay attention (which is rare), I find and see that I have built a construct around me where the rules apply to everyone… except me… or only when I deem it ‘appropriate’ (i.e. it makes me look good.) That sounds crass but let’s explore it.
It’s like this… In walking this path of life, I’ve found that the good that comes, is generated and grows from something that was ‘planted’ before. It has little to do with me personally. You can work all day long, do everything just right, memorize your scriptures, learn your craft of being a good human and yet self still have a tendency to put yourself first. The church has been speaking on this for years. For me… when left to my own devices, if I were to be honest, I find myself being the prodigal son’s brother…
What is that you say?
Well there is this story in the biblical text which describes a son of a wealthy man who demands his share of the inheritance and leaves home to live like a hellion. Today this would look much like the party scenes we’ve seen from the 70’s where it’s rock n roll, drugs, sex etc. No rules, just do your own thing and come to the conclusion that you are your own god. You make the rules and they change when you want to change. Nothing more, nothing less. The cost of living? It’s whatever you can make, to live the way you want to live and do what want to do.
In the biblical text, the son wakes up in a pig pen not far into his ‘bright’ future with the realization that he is living worse off than any of his daddy’s hired hands. So he picks himself up, humbles himself and goes back to Daddy’s farm, head low, realizing he lost all of his inheritance, never really had any friends and is better off ‘serving’ in dad’s home instead of cleaning out pig pens for a stranger.
This could be, in today’s world – you got busted, you’re all alone and you come home with your soul fractured because you were too stupid to listen.
The other part of the story is the older brother who stayed home, obeyed the rules, did what he was supposed to do, yet when little ‘bro’ shows up at the house, the celebration starts and he is pissed… why? Because he stayed with it, he worked through it AND now what does he get? He gets to go to a party for his jack-ass brother…in fact he might be part of the party prep. OUCH!
So he and dad clash… and what happens is that we find out the older brother is bitter. Why? Because he was expecting some great reward for doing what was ‘right’ and/or he didn’t expect grace and mercy to be given to his brother.
He couldn’t have missed the point any further.
His heart was wrong even though he was doing the ‘right’ thing.
The lawman has come to his end… he doesn’t understand mercy or grace. He understands that the law of obedience equals prosperity. He thinks ‘obeying’ makes him ‘better’ or something deep down all around, a higher class of human being. It chaps his backside that he stuck through it, worked harder to make up the difference when his knucklehead brother walked away, hurting his family and himself, and now just walks back in as if ‘it’s all okay’.
For us law men…, “NOT OKAY.”
We law people don’t like that.
We law people struggle with the idea that we ‘think’ there is something more that we should get and ‘they’, the law breakers shouldn’t get.
Really?
Yea, really…
I grew up in such a way that there were a lot of roads that most folks traveled which I didn’t. It is much like my story of Haven… for a couple of years after her death, I thought and made myself out to be something ‘more special ’ because my child had died… really?
Yea, sad to say… really.
The conclusion is –
- We are all the same.
- We all have the same capacity for good, for evil.
- We all have the same choice to create, add, and build in this life or breakdown, destroy and use.
- The path we walk is our path…no one else’s.
There are true fractures to my soul, that I will never carry because I didn’t go down those roads. Same for you. I don’t notice it because, it’s always been that way. Meaning, I don’t have an appreciation for what I have because I’ve always known it. It also means, that pride, ego, and a ‘better than’ attitude can slip in, just as unknown as any other ‘negative’ projection.
My soul isn’t splintered from the evil a lot of folks get into or dabble with. I was protected, sheltered and given a chance to grow to a place where I could make ‘more mature’ decisions.
This hasn’t made me better, it hasn’t made me superior…
My soul is fractured because of life. Your soul is fractured because of life. Who can raise their hand on that one? If anything, these choices have been the great equalizer. The things I didn’t do have brought to the table pride, arrogance, selfishness, and bitterness, because everyone else got to do those things that I was told, showed and believed made life better or more fun. Here is the truth.
It didn’t… and… it doesn’t matter.
This is a hard place to come to. If any of you, my friends, have seen or felt this off of me, this pride, this ego… again, I apologize.
Grace and Love are the two most powerful forces in the ‘verse’ yet it so hard to understand. I loving flying planes and there is a passionate side to flying and a scientific/mathematical thought-out side to flying. Break the rules, and it will come get you. Flying is much like the dance with the ocean. Obey her rules, you ‘might’ live. Defy them… well… you can guess… the ocean and sky don’t take prisoners. When I disseminate these things in my life I see a mathematical equation. 2 + 2 = 4. Obey the rules of the sky and sea you might live. Grace and love however, however, don’t add up, they aren’t logical and they are what throws the human equation sideways so often. They don’t make sense yet…our very life blood hangs on Grace and Love.
Though my road might not have had some of the more ‘expected’ excursions that the news and our society wave their hands at and say “Oh, everyone is doing it”…
Truth is… they aren’t. However, the point is, you can fracture your soul as quickly doing stupid foolish immature things as you can by being prideful, egotistical, and self absorbed.
OUCH.
Yea, and if and when you come to the place where you see things even… you come to realize, the ‘control’ you ‘thought’ you had really amounts to very little.
So, why write this out? Why air out these intimate thoughts?
Maybe the point of it is to realize your walk, my walk is just that… yours… and mine. Separate walks. What works for one doesn’t work for another. Maybe our role is to live and let live, and love like everyday is our last.
I am wondering what your story is…
Peace on the Journey.
One Response
I found this to be so true as i walked through a struggling marriage and eventual divorce. It is so easy to think that your way is better when you manage the bank account so the bills are paid on time or that there is order in the house….feeling like my way is the “right”way….I later found out that my husband was having affairs for many years….again very easy to make myself “better” than him. My inkling I got as I walked through this to the other side was that God uses broken people to advance his kingdom. It would have been very easy to justify that I was better than him but so glad that i did not go there and have to unpack the extra baggage that comes along with pride….Thanks for sharing your insight.