So I've said a few time before and promised an explanation of not having rules especially in departments where some expect us to have rules.
Our daughters, all four, have never dated and won't. Two are now married. Some folks then wonder what our "rules" look like, how it is we "do" that. How do we keep them from dating, what our definition of dating is, when they will get to make that choice for themselves and what the consequences for rule breaking in our house looks like.
They seem to have at least a brain strain or more like a brain fracture when we say we don't have a no-dating rule. "Then they can date if they want to?"
"No."
"So then you have dating rules."
"No."
Eyes glaze over and they shake their head and wonder if we are just being obstinate or silly or knowing us slightly, both.
We see it like this.
We don't have rules about walking on the window ledge when you are in a building five stories up and better.
But we seem to live in a society that once you are above the fifth floor, the only accepted way of getting from room 502 to 534 say, is to climb out on the ledge and walk hopefully to the corresponding window and then climb back in.
We stand in room 502 knowing that we need to get to 534 and listen to insane people talk about how easy and sort of fun it is to go by way of the ledge. They seem to think we are nuts for thinking it absurd to go about in this manner. They have always gotten from room to room that way, they are fine. Only a few folks fall to their death, and some survive to come up and climb right back out on that ledge.
Sorry, but we think you are crazy. You have perfectly good hallways. Why would you want to risk the fall, the chance that you might not be at the right window, so many other pit falls of taking the window ledge instead of the hallway.
But because we live in a society that refuses to take the hallway from room to room, we seem to have a no-window-ledge rule. Because what do you say when someone starts climbing out on the ledge and looks back at you and says, "Are you coming?"
"No, what are you, nuts? We don't use the ledge."
"Oh, you have a window ledge rule don't you?"
"Well I didn't before today, didn't know I needed one."
That is how we feel about dating. We don't really need a no-dating rule because quite frankly it is as ridiculous as getting from room to room via a window ledge. It doesn't assure you that you will actually get to the room you are seeking and on top of that it is plum dangerous and unnecessary to boot. It is just that nearly everyone in our society climbs out the window and goes along the window ledge.
We firmly believe and it has been proven that God will bring along your spouse when and where you need them. It will be evident, not necessarily just to the couple involved, but to their immediate community. It will be confirmed and known to those who need to know.
If God cares about the hairs on my head, the job I hold, the house I live in, the vacation I take, why would he not care about the second most important relationship, topped only by my relationship to Him? And care enough to bring the person that I need, and needs me, into my life at the appropriate time?
I do not need to entertain myself until then, get to know the opposite sex, and play around with falling off the ledge. This is baggage that gets in the way of the eventual relationship He will bring to me, and is the makings of footholds in my life that allows Satan to climb all over me.
And that is just the stuff that is bad for me personally. Dating also allows for me to defraud others. The people I date, when they think I care more about them than I do, they are defrauded. I can't possible be honest with how little I do care or they would break it off and I would not be able to gain the personal pleasure that I get from having someone to do things with. Having to do things alone or with your brother or your mom or dad, is a pitiful drag and down right embarrassing why would I be honest and make myself have to get through day to day life in that embarassing uncomfortable manner?
I also defraud their family and mine. They become close to me and my family to them, only to loose when we say it didn't work out. They are left with an unusable Christmas gift in the closet when we timely break up in November so that we don't have to do that uncomfortable Christmas, but we aren't really that into one another, thing. They are left with emotions that have no place to go now, or they continue to get together with my ex because for some reason they seem to like them better than me and they waited so long for a brother or a sister and now it looks like they will have to wait even longer and won't that be weird when I finally do get hitched what will they do with my old ex that they still like?
Not to mention the constant danger of slipping off the ledge and plummeting to the death of our purity. Physically and emotionally as well. And it is not enough just to "avoid" actually falling. We believe that to constantly tell yourself you cannot do a certain something, but enjoying getting up to certain edges only to exasperatingly back off before it is too late, is as dangerous to future intimacy as actually doing what you are not supposed to until you have committed yourself before your God and community.
So no, we don't have rules against dating any more than we have rules of walking on the fifth story window ledge.
More later. As always. Please pelt us with comments and questions, it spurs us on.
Showing posts with label Rules. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rules. Show all posts
Monday, December 14, 2009
Monday, December 1, 2008
Prize Inside!
I was not the person who succumbed to the marketing ploy this time but I sure was tickled to see it come home.
A big sack of Purina Puppy Chow
with the promise of a limited edition ornament.
.
They shouldn't tell what the prize inside is, knowing that it is this picture, an ornament that is a blatant product promotion, doesn't really thrill me.
.
But a promise of a free sumpin is still worth getting sorta 'cited.
.
But Bet said there wasn't nuthin in the ol' bag after all. Well that can't be true, 'cuz that would be false advertizment, lyin'.
.
Lemme look.
.
Duz you know how much Puppy Chow stinks? I mean it is the most awfulest smellin' stuff I ever did smell. And I've smelt some pretty smelly stuff. At least it's awful smellin' for feeding it to some body on purpose, even if it were and ol' pup.
.
Well, I'm gunna call that Purina company and tell 'em I was fooled and there weren't nuthin' in my bag liken they promised there would be. Jist as soon as I kin get rid of this here funny voice in my head. But rit now it jist seems a gitten worser and worser. Dang prize inside anyways.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Verbiage
This frame of mind and writing was all brought on by acknowledging once again that a few of the words I use, like some in the very last post, do not exist in most dictionaries. Hope those words that I like to invent do not drive you too insane. And if there was "phrase check" I would have many more uncorrectable yellow highlights in my writings.
Considering Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary definition of verbiage it would be a combination of the two definitions that I operate under.
1 : a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content2 : manner of expressing oneself in words : diction
Lets just say that my definition for verbiage is "manner of expressing oneself in words, a profusion of words most likely of little or obscure content." And verbiage is exactly what you my dear friend subject yourself to when you attempt a read at this thing called "It's The Dirt."
My mother was an English teacher, the epitome of English teachers, so let us just call what I pen, or keyboard if you will, a form of "offspring rebellion". When I left her notes on the kitchen table to let her know where I was, she would correct them, only and always with her red pen no less. There would be circled words with "sp" written above them, underlinings with arrows to where the phrase should appear, new punctuation would appear in red along with margin notes on correct word usage, always something about dangling participles and of course red lines straight through several words, no explanation necessary, I am and obviously was born verbose. This all on a note left to tell her that I was up at Yvette's, that I left at 4:25 and would return home at about 7:00.
I think she was always highly disappointed that I didn't hand in corrected versions of my notes. I am sure she chalked it up to why I was not improving in my note leaving let alone my school compositions that I eventually learned, by the time I left for college, not to leave lying around within twelve hours of their due date especially if eight of those twelve hours were those most people slept through. I am the youngest of six. I say that to say that my oldest brother is an English teacher in Oak Harbor. My oldest sister a Speech Pathologist (or something like that) in Portland. Ahh those rule following eldests, how do they do that. I seem to be completely incapable of following rules, even rules I come up with. Like laundry room rules, or rules for leaving the living room for the night, or any number of the gazillion rules I have made and usually broke before my children did.
I think that the whole rule thing is why I personally am so drawn to Christ, the rule fulfiller, the rule completer and the heart-maker. I love that. I love how he takes, tries to take, those Pharisees on past the rules and into the heart.
So lets consider what language is really for. Communication. Do we communicate better when our random grunts come under rules? You bet. I have a hard time communicating with someone who even though they are playing by rules are not playing by the same rules, like a Frenchman or a Swedish second cousin by marriage thrice removed. So rules are great. But rules often stifle what they intend to support i.e. communication. I do not communicate as much as I should. I am sure that global warming has been caused by the tons of paper trash I have personally made by throwing out cards and letters that I wrote but which did not live up to what I knew was acceptable communication by the rules and therefore un-sendable and horribly incriminating as to my lack of ability to participate in intelligent society.
A blogger from Molalla, OR, a young twenty-something budding journalist and I am sure a college graduate from WSU, captured my attention with a post which included an observation about the random interchange of "doesn't" with "don't." It is the one rule that stuck in my brain and is like fingers down the chalkboard of my spine when I hear it's use, or misuse shall we say. I commented to her that I whole heartily agreed with her noun-verb agreement issue. But on other posts she shares with her reader more of her frustrations with the less literate section of society, of who, or is it "of whom", no, "who" it is, wait maybe I should just say it differently... a section I identify strongly with. For who am I (did I do that right?) to call someone out for misspelling "strikes" on a cardboard sign at a baseball game as "stricks" when I spell the thing with four burners on top of the kitchen oven as "stolve." She had another picture of a note written on a pole in Seattle, an invitation to go to somewhere. Yes, I got that one of the two mistakes was that the person used the wrong "too" and should have used the "to" that doesn't mean an over abundance. However, I could not come up with the other mistake. I am not even sure with English handbook in hand I could have. But the note communicated to me. I knew that I would not be going to where this person was asking the reader to join him or her, but all in all I was communicated with whether intended or not. And isn't that what language is for?
I hope that I communicate with those who read my ramblings. Communication isn't agreement or even acceptance. I only hope to let you know what I am thinking. If you get it or even think you get it great, that is my intent. If you don't understand what I am saying or think you don't, please let me know and I will in earnest try to clear up the miscommunication. If you get it but don't like it or don't agree with me, let me know that too, I might change my mind. But please if you can at all get by without it, leave your red pen in your pocket. You may think that it is ink that comes out of that pen but really it is the blood of stymied communicators who used to love to write but write no more because they could not follow the rules that were made so that we could all get what the other was thinking.
You are welcome to apply this nutty concept to other things in life. Is strict adherence to the "rules" helping to obtain the outcome that the "rules" intend? Or is it time to go beyond the rules and instead dive into the heart of the matter? Jesus, in the Gospel accounts of the Sermon on the Mount, calls us to consistently look beyond the rules, the account of the pealing off of the wheat berries and eating them on the Sabbath or the healing of the man with the twisted hand on the Sabbath are more pleadings, leadings, for us to go beyond the rules and to the heart that the rules point us to. Was the sight of our Lord and Savior munching down on wheat berries that he just stripped off a stalk on the Sabbath like fingers down the chalk-board to the Pharisee? Perhaps. Should I let go of my irritation over improper noun-verb agreement? MMMM. Most likely yes, for it is the one grammatical mistake my dear Dirt owns, but better than I, he gets his meaning across. I have so many more words to use than he does and all those many more words are just many more opportunities for mistaken communication.
Hope I haven't today.
Considering Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary definition of verbiage it would be a combination of the two definitions that I operate under.
1 : a profusion of words usually of little or obscure content
Lets just say that my definition for verbiage is "manner of expressing oneself in words, a profusion of words most likely of little or obscure content." And verbiage is exactly what you my dear friend subject yourself to when you attempt a read at this thing called "It's The Dirt."
My mother was an English teacher, the epitome of English teachers, so let us just call what I pen, or keyboard if you will, a form of "offspring rebellion". When I left her notes on the kitchen table to let her know where I was, she would correct them, only and always with her red pen no less. There would be circled words with "sp" written above them, underlinings with arrows to where the phrase should appear, new punctuation would appear in red along with margin notes on correct word usage, always something about dangling participles and of course red lines straight through several words, no explanation necessary, I am and obviously was born verbose. This all on a note left to tell her that I was up at Yvette's, that I left at 4:25 and would return home at about 7:00.
I think she was always highly disappointed that I didn't hand in corrected versions of my notes. I am sure she chalked it up to why I was not improving in my note leaving let alone my school compositions that I eventually learned, by the time I left for college, not to leave lying around within twelve hours of their due date especially if eight of those twelve hours were those most people slept through. I am the youngest of six. I say that to say that my oldest brother is an English teacher in Oak Harbor. My oldest sister a Speech Pathologist (or something like that) in Portland. Ahh those rule following eldests, how do they do that. I seem to be completely incapable of following rules, even rules I come up with. Like laundry room rules, or rules for leaving the living room for the night, or any number of the gazillion rules I have made and usually broke before my children did.
I think that the whole rule thing is why I personally am so drawn to Christ, the rule fulfiller, the rule completer and the heart-maker. I love that. I love how he takes, tries to take, those Pharisees on past the rules and into the heart.
So lets consider what language is really for. Communication. Do we communicate better when our random grunts come under rules? You bet. I have a hard time communicating with someone who even though they are playing by rules are not playing by the same rules, like a Frenchman or a Swedish second cousin by marriage thrice removed. So rules are great. But rules often stifle what they intend to support i.e. communication. I do not communicate as much as I should. I am sure that global warming has been caused by the tons of paper trash I have personally made by throwing out cards and letters that I wrote but which did not live up to what I knew was acceptable communication by the rules and therefore un-sendable and horribly incriminating as to my lack of ability to participate in intelligent society.
A blogger from Molalla, OR, a young twenty-something budding journalist and I am sure a college graduate from WSU, captured my attention with a post which included an observation about the random interchange of "doesn't" with "don't." It is the one rule that stuck in my brain and is like fingers down the chalkboard of my spine when I hear it's use, or misuse shall we say. I commented to her that I whole heartily agreed with her noun-verb agreement issue. But on other posts she shares with her reader more of her frustrations with the less literate section of society, of who, or is it "of whom", no, "who" it is, wait maybe I should just say it differently... a section I identify strongly with. For who am I (did I do that right?) to call someone out for misspelling "strikes" on a cardboard sign at a baseball game as "stricks" when I spell the thing with four burners on top of the kitchen oven as "stolve." She had another picture of a note written on a pole in Seattle, an invitation to go to somewhere. Yes, I got that one of the two mistakes was that the person used the wrong "too" and should have used the "to" that doesn't mean an over abundance. However, I could not come up with the other mistake. I am not even sure with English handbook in hand I could have. But the note communicated to me. I knew that I would not be going to where this person was asking the reader to join him or her, but all in all I was communicated with whether intended or not. And isn't that what language is for?
I hope that I communicate with those who read my ramblings. Communication isn't agreement or even acceptance. I only hope to let you know what I am thinking. If you get it or even think you get it great, that is my intent. If you don't understand what I am saying or think you don't, please let me know and I will in earnest try to clear up the miscommunication. If you get it but don't like it or don't agree with me, let me know that too, I might change my mind. But please if you can at all get by without it, leave your red pen in your pocket. You may think that it is ink that comes out of that pen but really it is the blood of stymied communicators who used to love to write but write no more because they could not follow the rules that were made so that we could all get what the other was thinking.
You are welcome to apply this nutty concept to other things in life. Is strict adherence to the "rules" helping to obtain the outcome that the "rules" intend? Or is it time to go beyond the rules and instead dive into the heart of the matter? Jesus, in the Gospel accounts of the Sermon on the Mount, calls us to consistently look beyond the rules, the account of the pealing off of the wheat berries and eating them on the Sabbath or the healing of the man with the twisted hand on the Sabbath are more pleadings, leadings, for us to go beyond the rules and to the heart that the rules point us to. Was the sight of our Lord and Savior munching down on wheat berries that he just stripped off a stalk on the Sabbath like fingers down the chalk-board to the Pharisee? Perhaps. Should I let go of my irritation over improper noun-verb agreement? MMMM. Most likely yes, for it is the one grammatical mistake my dear Dirt owns, but better than I, he gets his meaning across. I have so many more words to use than he does and all those many more words are just many more opportunities for mistaken communication.
Hope I haven't today.
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