Category: Observations

Let’s develop that idea a bit, starting with me.

Me

I am an introvert.
I am recently retired. On the first day of my retirement, I had just celebrated forty-three years of marriage. My two daughters are married—one has two boys, and the other has two girls. My wife and I live in a cottage on the property of one daughter. The other daughter lives less than fifteen minutes away.

I worked as an electronics engineer for thirty years, followed by another ten years working for my church. I have been a member of that church for over thirty years.

I have seen some life.
I have interacted with many people.
These are my thoughts.

Rules

I have been a Christian for quite some time, and I believe I’ve followed the rules faithfully. In the beginning, I followed those who had been walking this path much longer than I had. That’s how it works—the younger ones learn from the older ones.

While I wasn’t particularly young in age, many of my teachers were younger than me. But that didn’t matter. Being taught means that, at first, there’s more following than questioning. I see this mirrored in my grandchildren. The only way they’ll succeed in this world, even in small measures, is if they learn to listen.

There are rules to life, and failing to follow them often results in pain:

• Don’t touch the stove—I learned this the hard way, blistering half my hand on a hot plate.
• Don’t kick or bite—it hurts others, and they might retaliate, which will hurt you.
• Don’t get too close to the fire—it sparks.
• Beware of strangers—my mom taught me this, and countless movies make it clear.
• School starts at 8 a.m., not whenever you feel like it—being late can bring unwelcome attention.
• Life is a balance between chores and leisure—chores will always increase.
• Studying is part of life—embracing it early is essential. Limited knowledge leads to limited opportunities. As a student of Sir Francis Bacon once wrote, “Knowledge is Power.”

And so on.

Rules exist at different levels: societal, human, and personal. We follow them because we must—they keep us grounded in our slice of society, culture, and humanity.

But here’s the problem: rules can be abused and misused.

Misusing Rules

No set of rules has been more exploited than the Bible.

In the beginning, you don’t see this. Just as a child doesn’t immediately realize that not everything their parents teach is good for them.

Much of our learning isn’t direct, as in, “Do this,” or, “Don’t do that.” It’s often indirect—how we observe people dealing with life and others. This includes matters like racism, pride, prejudice, and biases:

• “Don’t yell at your mom,” yet I yell at their mom.
• “Clean your room,” but my room is messy.
• “Treat everyone equally,” and yet I look down on another culture.

Our behaviour speaks louder than words. Children absorb this—the good and the bad.

Parenting is relentless; its lessons, intentional or not, are constantly in our children’s faces. This happens more often than even screen time. So much of what we teach is unconscious, though some is deliberate. And because of this, children become victims of their surroundings, just as we were—and as all children surrounded by adults have been.

It’s not entirely our fault.
Parenting is the gift that keeps on giving, deviating continuously from the romantic ideal we have in mind.

My Christian Journey

My Christian upbringing was no different: rules and examples. There were Bible rules and Bible-following individuals, living and breathing next to me, demonstrating how to walk this path.

I assumed they were following Christ’s example, and much of it was good. It transformed who I am.

But as I grew older, I began to notice unsettling things.

There were many groups—not just mine—who called themselves Bible-following Christians. Yet, we each followed different subsets of the Bible. Worse, we emphasized the common parts differently.

We all held a Bible in our hands, yet we spoke different dialects of ‘Bible-speak.’ And every group believed their dialect was the correct one—sometimes the only one.

In my church, the ‘English’ we spoke was always the ‘right’ dialect.

And yet… no one knows everything.