Not so simple. . . .

There are a lot of sticky topics and choices out there. This is a talk that I have with my children, and because I am visual, it comes out in pictures. The gist of the talk is that we want a black and white world. We want right and wrong to be clear and easy and straight across the board for everyone.

But what we want is not always what we get. We live in a world where others have different belief systems, and even those within a similarly described world view have differing outlooks. In Christendom, we point to the Bible as our absolute. In this I am in full agreement. It should be the work that forms our opinions on the basics of right and wrong. I totally agree with this as a foundation. But it is not a simple foundation. The Bible presents complex scenarios, flawed people, and areas that are subjectively open to the reader's interpretation.

 [I often try to figure out where the line is. I know that there is a piece of logic that says an author means one impervious point no matter how many subjective distortions there are upon the reader's interpretations. But in the case of an omnipotent, omniscient God - could he create a work that has different meanings to different individuals? Welcome to my mind folks.]

Ultimately I am confronted with the idea that my guidebook to morality is not at all simple in nature.

In some ways I am heartened by the fact that there is a complexity here. It makes me hopeful that it goes far beyond 10 commandments and addresses the complexity of the life I live in. But it leaves my view of what is right and wrong looking a little more like this:

Then we start applying an individual filter to morality. You see we are all different people with different thoughts, proclivities, strengths, and weaknesses.

There was this video game that I used to play. It was a good game - rated E for Everyone. No violence, no questionable material. A simple game made for children. But for me it became an addiction. I started to be incapable of putting it down and doing what I needed to be doing. My house chores, my family, they started to get ignored for this game. It became a wrong choice for me because of my addiction, even thought it would not be a wrong choice for others who did not have that struggle. This addition of individuality to right and wrong brings a greater change in our "morality map".

And in this case each individual is going to have a little different map. Mine won't look like yours and yours won't look exactly like anyone else's.

It isn't always about big glaring elements. Sometimes the difference between right and wrong is in the smaller details. Some, like motives, may even be unseen to all but God.

Taking a look at the stories we tell, the above two are both about stealing from the rich. Yet one is about a hero and the other is about a bunch of hoodlums. Attitudes, motives, the small details of the situations make these two different stories with two totally different moral outcomes.

When you take the detailed stories of our lives and lay that on top of individuality, and a complex guidebook, what is right and wrong gets increasingly difficult to pick out of the mix.

And then there are value judgments. I'll never forget the time my 2nd grader brought home a school worksheet that had the answer, "I would choose to lie." to a question about what they would do if they were the main character in the story. Needless to say, I started reading that book right away to see what was going on.

The young character in the book was entering America at a time when immigration laws forbade families from entering the country together. The children had to lie about their connection with the parents to remain in their family unit. They made a judgement that in this case family was more important than honesty. You see sometimes our decisions and choices are not about a right vs a wrong, but sometimes about which right we will choose over another. [Just ask any parent of teenagers about choosing to go to the PTA mtg or watch a ball game that their child is in.] And in other cases, life puts us in positions of choosing which evil we think is the least damaging.  And if you think that the Bible does not portray people in the middle of these situations, I would ask you to look at the story of Abraham and Isaac [among a multitude of others]. Abraham chose obedience to God over the life of his son. He had a no win situation and had to make a difficult value judgement.

Life, and morality is turning out to be something pretty complex. And here is where I will make some people upset. Because we also have an adversary out there, and he is subtle. You see there are things out there so vile and depraved that society as a whole will shun. Too often it is the subtle small things that we are willing to overlook that can do damage.

Oooh - told you I was going to get a reaction.

Now let me start out by saying that the Little Mermaid is not the ultimate in evil. My kids have seen and enjoyed it. I enjoy parts of it a great deal (Under the Sea & Kiss the Girl). But so often a catchy tune and likable characters can pull us out of thinking about what a story is actually saying. I really don't want my own teen daughters to have the idea that you follow after "true love" at all costs and that everything will turn out all right. It is a dangerous message. [While we are on the topic, I find it rather disturbing that the King in the movie was willing to sacrifice all the people in his kingdom for his own child - rather  opposite a story that means so much more to me.] So while it isn't the ultimate in evil, it is sneaky, and if you aren't thinking, you are going to miss the message behind the colorful animation in an unexpected place - a children's story.

And this one is a hard one for me. Because I want my children to think, but I don't want them fearful of the world around them, or calling out everything the world produces as wrong. It is a heady tightrope to walk when I add in the presence of an enemy of great experience in the affairs of men. He has an ability to make the lines between right and wrong quite blurred.

Where it lands us is that we often open our home to age appropriate material that is questionable. When my children were young we watched the Little Mermaid, but we had conversations about how the choices in the movie might look like in real life. Now that they are teens we are talking about the Hunger Games. Because I want my children to learn discernment. I find it is difficult to learn that when there is a lack of exposure to different viewpoints.

When I start to think about all of this, there are times when I feel a little overwhelmed. We are a long way away from a black and white- right and wrong - list of actions here. I long for the ease of that list. But I am a complex being living in a world of complexities designed by a God who is incomprehensibly complex. I can start to drown in all of this as an adult. So how do I pass on a moral grid to my children?

I know what I want for my children. I want a discernment that is rooted in a full and overflowing knowledge of the scriptures and the complex laws and stories that are contained  in the Bible. I want this tempered with the wisdom and gentleness that Christ displayed in his interactions with others.

I want my children to stand firm in what they believe to be what God has chosen as right and wrong, while at the same time being able to present their viewpoint with a persuasive gentleness and kindness rather than open aggravation and hostility.

I pray that God will guard our hearts and minds, because I have to admit that I don't know how to get to what I want. I often struggle with being judgmental and alienating (case in point, using a well loved Disney movie to make a point). But I am hoping that my desire for this will count a little, and that God will help us a lot along the journey.