Going home

So this lawyer, well versed in the law, came to the mother who was watching over two little rug rats who were playing on the monkey bars (and was anything ever more appropriately named?) and asked the most respectable of questions: "Which rule of parenting is the most important?"

The lawyer was asking this, of course, because one of the rug rats was suing to be released from custody from the mother.

The mother looked deeply into the eyes of the lawyer, with purpose and with love equally, and answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment."

She paused, again with intent, cooly looking into the eyes of the blood-sucker that was the lawyer, the eyes that had tried to break away having been beaten at his own game by a little woman in a baggy shirt and cullotes. Then she said the kicker: "There is one like it, though. You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Loving your neighbor?
Loving yourself?

What's up with this?

The lawyer suddenly understood that there is more to loving God than what one could imagine. One actually had to like oneself.

But one couldn't because one has to be vulnerable in order to do that. In order to do that one has to understand that it's okay to be oneself, even as a mother or as a father. As a parent.

This isn't about parenthood, of course, but it is about becoming. That's what all parents do, isn't it?

Let's begin what will be a week's worth, at worst, look at parenting. Truthfully I'm beginning a series soon on Godly parenting. I confess from the beginning that my father was a bad parent and I took after him, as they say. That my children turned out the way they did is a tribute more to Mary and God than anything I've done or said. I never addressed grace the way I will be teaching parents should. I have, however, repented.

I do, however still, understand that it is okay to be vulnerable. I understand this because of the grace God showed me when He sent his son to die for me. Until I understood that, there was some bad parenting going on.

The Bible speaks quite early about parenting, and it is quite serious about it. In the book of Exodus, God speaks about what bad parenting can do. He says:.

I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me."

Uh, oh. What we do can put upon our children, and theirs and so on. That works both ways, gratefully. So that if we "govern" our children with grace, they in turn are much more likely to do so. Isn't that wonderful?

The point of the story above then is made more clear. If we can love ourselves with grace and mercy, understanding that we've been forgiven by a God who loves us dearly, then we can love our neighbor, who in this instance is our own children, in the same manner.

Thus in any discussion about parenting, one begins with the notion that God loves so much that he gives us everything we could possibly want and then he gives us more, our very life.

The discussion leads, of course, in Matthew to a discussion about the Messiah, but I prefer letting that discussion lead into the story of the prodigal son.

Oh, you know it. The son leaves home, makes a mess of things, and then when he is coming home, the Father leaps up and runs down the road to the son.

That's parenting, isn't it? Doing what we can for them, teaching them, but most importanly, forgiving them their mistakes because we acknowledge that we are perfectly capable of making mistakes of our own.

The message then becomes, come on home. I love MY FATHER with all my being, THEREFORE, I can love you, my child. In fact, let's walk home together.