What’s that under there? (To which you are supposed to respond… !!!)

Or how about this: I see Paris, I see France, I see Joey’s… food has ants!

Or something like that. <smile!> Remember this from when you were a kid? Everyone laughed at you if you fell for it. If there’s one thing children like to do its to make fun of each other. I think in psych class I heard some mumbo-jumbo about the “insecurity we all feel in our ego expressing itself by underscoring the weakness of others to mask the deficiency of ourselves”. Whatever. I just know that kids are mean, they snipe, and every person I’ve ever heard tell about it bears the scars of being ravaged in grade school one way or another.

These torment things hang on for dear life well into adulthood. You might call a fat guy “slim”, a clumsy girl “gracie”, a tall guy “shorty” and so on. Heaven help the kid that does something innocent like touch a barbed wire electric fence in front of all the other kids and ends up with the nickname “jolt” the rest of his life, forced to forever explain why his “friends” call him stinky or zeke or gator or whatever related word they came up with.

There was a time when we were all children, and we were occasionally mean to each other. Sure, we also affectionately teased one another too which is a close cousin but not quite the same as putting someone down to make ourselves look good. But now we’ve all grown up and are responsible, mature, sensitive adults who are secure with ourselves, right? Right?

The thing is, the writer of Galatians points out there is a lack of love if we bite and devour one another. We are not all at the same point of maturity, and just like children by age we can, as children of the spirit, show a cruel spirit towards one another by our words and deeds. Did Adam justify himself when he blamed “the woman that you gave me”? If I would teach a class and say something in error by mistake, and it is a mistake, are you more righteous for proudly making sure everyone knows how stupid I am and how smart you are? Don’t you suppose God looking down at the two of us “children” shakes his head in the silly actions that play out like this?

As children, we think of self. It’s all about ME. And in our uncertain ways we are happy to deflect blame, mocking, laughter, whatever on to someone else so it doesn’t get directed on us. Children try to be different by being the same and hiding in the crowd. But as adults, we are expected to be better. Job, when corrected by God, isn’t treated as a child but is told to stand up and gird himself like a man. God sought for a man, just one to stand up for him, in all of Israel before he condemned it. The upright man has peace, and joy, and understanding, says the proverbs writer. That is how we should behave, like grown ups!

Besides, it’s when we bend over that folks are more likely to notice, um, that our food has ants! Yeah, that’s how it goes! <smile!>

Randy