IT’S THE LAW

Sometimes, not often, mind you, just every once in a while, I walk the straight and narrow simply because I don't want to go to jail – or maybe worse (although I can't think of anything worse than being locked up). There are times when I am really in a hurry that I'd love to go 80-90 miles an hour. But the "law" says that I can't. And if I do...So I don't.

For that I cannot pat myself on the back or remind myself of my virtues or anything else along the lines of self-serving justification. I'm "good" simply because I am afraid of the consequences of being "bad." Sometimes it's simply as simple as that.

Now it shouldn't be that way. We should all do what we know is right, even what the law demands, just because that is what we should be doing as a Christian person and not because we are afraid or are unwilling to pay the price for doing what is wrong. But sometimes fear of pain is the final deterrent.

Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" What allows us to be so brash as to defy the law is that sometimes (that word again) we do manage to avoid the torpedoes – or the radar. Sometimes we don't get caught. And that gives us the courage to maybe try it again next time. Then, if we don't get caught that time.... The jails, however, are living proof that discretion should have been the better part of valor.

But the jails are also living proof that fear, discretion, good common sense, Christian principles and the law win out more often than not, but not always. I would like to believe that our Christian faith is our first and last deterrent from straying off the path. It probably is. But the law is also a powerful force.

What is somewhat unfortunate is that it is all too tempting to cite the law, to instill the fear of punishment, to scare people into doing good and avoiding evil rather than trying to teach right attitudes. It's easier and takes less time to pull out the wooden spoon and wave it around (and maybe use it) to keep the kids in line than to sit down and talk with them about what would bring out the spoon in the first place.

But the wooden spoon is only a temporary deterrent. It doesn't get to the root of the situation. Neither does the threat of jail nor the fear of hell. Hell-fire and brimstone works only for a time, "time" being the time it takes to realize that that's a threat the consequences of which will only be experienced some time off in the distant future, if ever, and not now.

That's not to say that the law or the wooden spoon or even some reverential fear of the Lord is unimportant. They do serve a purpose: they remind us that perhaps we are for the moment taking our Christian responsibilities and obligations for granted. As a reminder, the law is good and necessary. As a reason for doing or not doing something, it should not even be a reason.

Unless that law is the law of Love. Then it's the only reason.