January 28, 2014
Oh My God
In a neighboring community a
man in his 30’s drove through a neighborhood during the wee hours of the
morning throwing large firecrackers out the window of his car. Unfortunately one
firecracker exploded in his hand. When his car came to rest against a fence, neighbors
ran up to the vehicle and found the man holding his handless wrist saying, “Oh
my God! Oh my God!” I’m just guessing, but I think it’s safe to say there is a
lesson in there somewhere. This whole scenario gives me pause when I hear Jesus
saying, “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it
away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole
body to go into hell.” (Matt 5:30 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Thank you, so much for drawing those two pictures together. I always thought there was something more to that saying of Jesus than just a metaphor. Learning’s expensive. You can go to college and pay a boatload of money for it. But that’s only a small part of the learning life needs. Most people would not have wound up handless in this man’s remaining shoes; they would not have even entertained the thought of what he did. Caring about the rights of others costs us a lot of things we could otherwise freely do. The efforts we have to put forth in producing civil behavior are costs we pay most of our time. And it isn’t easy.
-----The good thing is that we also get a little lesson after every cost. Like a piece of candy, it reflects upon the well done and revises the not so well done. It’s up-building aspect maintains and hardens resolve to more than never cross moral lines, but seeks to abide deeper within their bounds.
-----Then, with knowing boundaries comes rejecting out-of-bounds. The old saying, “Curiosity killed the cat,” applies here. People tend to fumble this one. Curiosity is good when the eyes are looking for good. But boundaries are boundaries because across them is the bad. And when eyes gaze across them into the bad, curiosity is just not good. Yet, those who’ve paid enough to have learned what’s truly and most sincerely bad has earned the say about what‘s out-of-bounds.
-----The drip, dripping, continuous mental costs of maintaining boundaries are overwhelming to some. Their unwillingness to pay the cost of not thinking upon the unthinkable brings the unthinkable to a mind near us all. Those real thoughts entertain real imaginations which have been raised to expect ideas for free.
-----Of course, ideas have to coast no more than the amount of nourishment the brain burns in producing it, plus the opportunity cost of not getting what a better idea would have produced. But if the cost of examining an idea against a worshipfully accepted list of behaviors and other simple truths is not paid, then such cost is accrued into risk, where it collectively waits for you to become the fool just once. It pays us to carry the costs of guarding our hearts with all vigilance so other body parts do not become the price of foolishness.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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