PUT THAT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT

"Put that in your pipe and smoke it." Wow, I haven't heard that expression since I was a teenager and had forgotten about it until a friend sent me an email and ended it with, “put that in your pipe and smoke it.” We had been talking about how parents influence children and I had spoken much about children actualizing values taught by their parents. I had commented that the fruit of success for parents is watching their children become proactive in protecting their constitutional rights as a matter of biblical and social justice especially in such a negatively poisoned climate as has been created by Mr. Bush and company. I was feeling quite pleased with myself when my friend ask, “What about grace? What role does the grace of God play in all of this?”

Upon reflection I realized that in influencing children parents must be like Caesar's wife, beyond reproach, in their own lives. Obviously, we cannot meet this expectation any more than could Caesar's wife. To me, that's where grace comes in.

It is important for children to see that as parents we come up short and sometimes outright fail. That is a part of being human. However, it is also a part of being human that we do not let our shortcomings and failures divert us from the greater ethical and moral values that should be our goal. Again, this is where grace comes in because we cannot do this alone. It is easy to be base; it is easy to allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking that baseness is okay by embracing situation ethics, even when we know it is wrong to do so.

Moreover, children must be taught that they cannot do it alone either. They must be taught that it is only through God's grace that they will gain forgiveness when they come up short and fail and as such it is incumbent for them to forgive others, especially parents, they have put on a pedestal.

In the words of Thomas Paine, America has always been riddled with "sunshine patriots and summertime soldiers." Patriotism is easy to profess, even super patriotism as does Mr. Bush and company, as long as someone else stands up and does the fighting. Likewise, virtue is easy to profess; holding ethical and moral values of substance is easy to profess, until one is asked to pay the cost.

Pain speaks of the "dearness" of liberty and I would add that living a virtuous life predicated on values that speak to the highest ethical and moral understanding of patriotism – true patriotism; not the convoluted, politicized, version of neoconservatives - also carries "dearness." Martin Luther King wrote in Letters from a Birmingham Jail that no man is free until all men are free. True freedom, like true liberty and true patriotism, is impossible unless each of us is willing to take on the "dearness" and pay the cost.

Passion to stand steadfast in the truth is always difficult; moreover, when confronted with the evil of Mr. Bush and company, it most certainly requires the grace of God.