^ME, this week.(Although I've been farther in my hole.)^ I love meercats, They are just so easy to take good shots of, aren't they?
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When I monologue in the shower to myself, it's never a good thing. Please feel free to Stop reading at anytime.
When I monologue in the shower to myself, it's never a good thing. Please feel free to Stop reading at anytime.
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God's Rules Don't Change. He doesn't change His mind.
I am certainly NOT saying that our rules are on the same plane with God's. But if we are to deport ourselves after him and strive to bring younglings in his ways, we must, as a necessity pattern our rule book, and revisions thereof, after HIS. (That's a long sentence. Sorry.)
We see the kids in our church today and we assume they are already set in their assumptions and assimilations where the unchanging character of God is concerned. But the truth of the matter is, although we like to joke about "Kids these days.." and "These young things..." the eighteen and nineteen year-olds who walk onto this campus or walk into a church are just as observant and absorbent as they ever were in "my day." Maybe more so, because the world is sucking the spirituality out of us so fast that they are hungering in spirit whether they are aware of it or not. Why else would they be here...
These kids are smarter than I was at that age. It's a sad, lonely street smart, but it has a strong tough logic behind it. A logic that will pull you apart and spit you out if you are spouting platitudes and living in despair. A logic that will see the dress code from one year change to the next and run in a vein very similar to this: God's School-God's Rules-God's Character, God's school changes the rules that are laid as God's rules, God must not be unchanging.
Let me just clarify something here before I step into a pool of never ending sinking sand, since I don't know who might be reading this... I AGREE WITH 90% OF THE DRESS CODE. And the rest are a very good idea for damage control and maintaining a level of classiness at this school.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I still say that is all these kids are getting from this code. The ones that do not hold to it when they come, do not maintain it when they leave, nor do they follow it while they are here. There are always lines crossed and students sent to change. More than half of the dean's time is spent policing the dress code. Again, I like the code. I DO NOT want to walk out of my room and be, well, any more shocked than I already am sometimes. I hold to MODESTY. And yes that is covered and taught to these kids. But unless you are in the ministerial division, it is in ONE class. Your freshman year.
Ah...Freshman year.
I was...(ahem)...VERY well accustomed to this school and every practice and place and person thereof my freshman year and I still remember about HALF of the stuff covered in my classes that semester. And that is also with out all of the other stuff these kids have to deal with. "Where am I gonna live, Who am I gonna date, Who is gonna be my best friends, What about my books, food, Etc?"
So these kids walk home from their first semester (actually they probably drive.) and their Mom says "So what have you learned?" and all they can say is "Stuff, what's for dinner?"
These kids need to know modesty. They need it knocked in one ear and someone please plug the other. They need it every day, day in and day out. If these kids never leave here knowing how to carry a note or a one; we should send them out of here knowing how to carry themselves with decorum and decency. God didn't give us the big rules and the little ones. This is serious stuff we are not even bothering to mention to our kids. Make it part of our daily rites in the dorm. Put it in every sermon in Sunday school. Tell the kids that it's not about the heel of your shoe being in or out, but about the view you are presenting to the world. Let them know that the reason we wear our hair up is not biblical, but due to raising the class and businesslike atmosphere. Are we afraid to tell them the truth? Because I am pretty sure they are not afraid to know the truth. About a lot more than even I do. These kids are harder and less naive than anything we have ever encountered before.
All, I am actually ranting about here is that we should not just bring these kid here and say "Here, these are the rules, you have to follow them, because they are the rules."
I know that in the discipline of a child, if you answer when your child asks you "why" he should follow your command, you are doing that child a disservice. But in the raising of the Christians of our future, if we don't answer this "Why?" with what the Bible actually has to say, and not just in bible class or in chapel or church, but every time we walk or talk, we are not only doing them a disservice, we are killing our future.
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Sorry. Told you it was a monologue. I probably shouldn't stay up 'til five either, though. Might have something to do with it.
LadyAnne
