When I was a kid, one of my mom’s recurrent lines was:
“If Sammy jumped in a mud puddle, would you?”
Sammy was my friend and we had lot of fun. And we landed in our share of mud puddles. Fact is, I think that Mom had forgotten how much fun mud can be. I’m 66 years old now and generally avoid mud. In looking back, mom was right. But, today, I hear lines that are the opposite of Mom’s line often.
They go something like this:
“OK, yes, I used the handicapped parking spot………but lots of people do.”
Or
“Yeah, I let my kids watch half dressed people on TV…….but it was on network TV in prime time.”
Or
“Abortion is legal…..I won’t interfere with the choices of others.”
What it comes down to is this……. Mom was right. Just because “everybody is doing it” ………doesn’t mean that it’s right. I had my own version of Mom’s line. In these situations I used to tell my sons “that makes it common……..it doesn’t make it right”.
We live in a world where two things are happening.
There are people who are working very hard to make things common that were once wrong. The result of this is that we have come to accept as normal things that are not good for us. Then we are told to be ”tolerant”…….in other words to sit down and shut up when somebody tries to tell us something that just isn’t right.
The media is complicit in this. The amount of murder and mayhem that we and our children ingest in one evening of prime time TV is amazing. The movies are even worse. There are images that harm me that are trapped in my head from movies that I watched 50 years ago……..from magazines that I looked at as a teen.
And we tell ourselves that it’s all okay…….. that it’s normal. And it is…….. normal that is……normal in the statistical sense that 95% of us do it. The trouble is that we have come to accept that ”normal” means OK………or even good. The fact is that ”normal or common” ………and “right” are completely unrelated. The first is statistical concept. The second is moral concept.
Just because it is common does not mean that it is right.
I believe in God as described in the Bible and I highly recommend Him to you.
But, even if you don’t believe in God, the Bible is still the best moral code that we have. It is far superior to the flexible “home brew” moral code that most of us use.
Love God
Love your neighbor
Don’t lie
Don’t steal
Don’t murder
Honor your parents
Sex is for husbands and wives
Don’t covet
Take the day off on Sunday
It is going to take strength of character to stand up for what is right……..in the face of what is normal. But, it is necessary….
in order to protect yourself. It is even more critical to protect your children and grandchildren from ”normal”. Because “normal”………is getting worse every day. Can you imagine what “normal” will look like to your grandchildren when they are adults? In my lifetime, we have gone from “Andy of Mayberry” and “The Walton’s” to “Criminal Minds” and the Joker. Where will Hollywood take us next?
“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is —his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Paul, NIV