Please Dont

There is a list of rules covering everything from operations at a cider house to ordinances concerning a park bench, and in an utter inability to pay obedience to those rules, people have stopped altogether — stopped thinking, stopped engaging, stopped being the dynamic human beings we are designed to be.

Like any child who constantly hears ‘no’ many are just acting out of frustration for the glass ceiling and walls surrounding them — the unseen enemy that seems to be oppressing them through the imposition of a set of rules no one can abide by.

That’s what happen in the biblical narrative. People could not obey the hundreds of laws the religious leaders proposed which resulted in an annual animal sacrifice called the scapegoat. It was like the reset button for people who had fought and feuded with neighbors, defrauded in business, committed some kind of cardinal sin, or by other means had fallen short. The scapegoat secured forgiveness for the coming year and let everyone begin anew.

Once Moses came on the seen, he recognized the fact that no one could ever keep the law of Abraham and the scapegoat ritual was insufficient to keep the people in peace. Enter the Ten Commandments and a new way of thinking — simple, layman’s terms to give the people a plan for how to be decent in their dealings with strangers as well as those with whom they spend the bulk of their time. The Ten Commandments gave a common sense response to the dilemma of how to rule or govern our own behavior.

But our list of “Please don’t” rules has far exceeded what the Hebrew children contended with. The rule of law in America is highly debatable, conditional, poorly administered, vaguely interpreted, and forever being threatened to change or amend. Those in government operate with exception, clauses, special circumstances, executive orders, and other loop-hopes that continue to surprise C-SPAN viewers nationwide.

While religion plays less of a role in today’s political conversations, politicians are still wielding the same iron first dictators around the world hold over their citizens that secure an allegiance only a supernatural traction beam could break. Big government, and the manipulation thereof, leave citizens with a false sense of constitutional oversight and a misunderstanding of the “We the People…” mandate. Some might have us believe that religion is at the heart of the debate between parties, but unfortunately, it is the “please don’ts” and the “I rather you not” do this or that because it conflicts with our plans, that causes the greatest breach of trust.