Back to School, to FINALLY understand the Golden Rule!

At the beginning of the year, my goal, specifically not a resolution, was to find balance. I think maybe my perspective of what balance was started out slightly flawed. I had imagined it as walking a tight rope between right and wrong, and to that imagery I would have fallen to my death long ago, if that tight rope were extended in mid-air. Even with the line safely on the ground, I would have looked like a drunk on the side of the road, trying so hard to avoid a night in the slammer. However, if you added up the leans toward one side and the other…. I might be a little closer to striking a balance. Maybe.


The battle seems to fall between selfish and selfless…. With errors still occurring squarely on the side of selfish. Isn’t it funny how certain you can become that you are the only person in the world who is selfish? That everyone else is walking around in a constant state of service, never once weighing decisions based purely on self-interest.

Or is it true, and I need a massive kick in the pants?

I do love being there for people, helping them when they need it, but only so long as it fits within parameters I’ve defined. Some call that having healthy boundaries, jury is still out for me. To complicate that, you know how good it feels when you do meet a need, give more than you planned, do something for the greater good, and you want to shout it from the roof tops. Which is a strange phenomenon in and of itself, because technically if we were living as we should, we’d be doing those things all the time and our need to toot our own horn at having done them would subside. Back to the point, in all reality the only person that actually wants to hear about it is your mom. It kinda comes with the job I suppose, whenever you’re child comes to you and says look Mom and Dad, look what I did, you give them a pat on the back and say well done. I guess, biblically, that’s how it’s supposed to be done, you know the whole end of our lives “Well done good and faithful servant” speech…. Although I’m still holding out hope for the audible, ‘atta girl’ to fall from heaven sometimes.

Facebook doesn’t help matters. In a matter of seconds I can tell the world that I cleaned my house that day, and get 15 ‘likes’. Then on the days when I’m lacking total motivation and (since I’m lacking total motivation) find myself on Facebook, seeing other people posting about how productive they are, generally only feeds the beast that can be self-loathing. I suppose one thing that has balanced in the last 8 months has been my love of Facebook, its finally found its rightful place at the low end of my to-do/see totem-pole.

The grace v. confrontation balance has been a bit of a mind bender for me too. If ‘love covers a multitude of sins’, where on that line… that very fuzzy if not totally transparent, line… do you say enough? I guess if you’re writing a book, that’s designed to cover every human condition, and remain relevant for 2000 years +, you’re bound to have quite a few juxtaposed positions on topics, but it does create quite a complication for someone trying to find their line of balance!

I know I’m not the only one struggling with this one either…. It’s shocking how heated a Christian debate can become. In politics or life, if you hold a different opinion as someone else, they might call you ignorant (if they’re keeping it classy). In Christian debates, people gloss right over ignorance and start praying for your soul…. Meaning they’re quite certain you’re headed to Hell with your current way of thinking and they need to intercede for you. It has me totally baffled. Millions, if not in the billions, of people claim Christianity, and yet the greater church with its many different factions (of which I do claim ignorance for understanding the differences) can’t seem to get us all on the same page? If a house divided falls, I’d say we’re in a bit of trouble peeps.

With all of my questions, I am super excited to start this next semester with church. I’ve signed up to take these seminary style classes from Regent University, it’s part of a pilot program my church is doing with them. Three years, 12 classes I think, and you end with a certificate of practical ministry from the University. This is only my first semester, so whether I stay committed till the end is TBD, but I’m excited for my own ‘Back to School’ adventure! If you weren’t a fan of the faithy posts before, you might want to stop checking in so I don’t annoy you, cause that’s the direction this mama is moving, so I’d expect my musings to follow suit.