The five-year old "Why?"

Much of the anarchy in public schools today rests squarely upon the shoulders of the parents who have ill-disciplined their children.  Demand no standard of conduct in the home and you make it quite challenging for Mr. Mathteacher to demand a held tongue or focused attention amidst his lecture on the nuances of the null set.

Parents began giving teachers children ill-prepared for the classroom when they jettisoned the principles of biblical discipline for the pop-psychology du jour advocating self-esteem over self-discipline.  Rather than restrain the toddling tyrant with a loving dose of corporal punishment parents ceded the reign of their domain to their child leaving their home and subsequently the schools to look like the whirlwind they had sown.

One of the ways parents have neutered themselves is by feeling the need to explain to Little Joanie the reason behind everything she is told to do.  Newsflash:  when a child is told to do X by the parent, the only acceptable response is to accomplish X right away, all the way, and with a good attitude (a "happy heart").  Allowing the child to delay the task's completion by asking "Why?", while paying you as much attention as a brussel sprout, feeds and corrupts the inquisitive nature of the child.  Kids want to explore.  They're discovering the world.  The first half-dozen years of a child life ooze magic and wonder as adventures and discoveries dot the landscape.

Really, though, do they want the rationale behind why their socks belong in the dirty close hamper instead of decorating the floor of their bedroom?  When told to go to bed, do their hearts ache to hear the biological and spiritual need for the human frame to rest? NO!  They have discovered the means to delay the inevitable.  Ten more minutes of play become twenty.  Perhaps Mom will even forget the initial command and pick up Little Joanie's socks herself.  Cool.

Cutting to the core, if a child does not do what he is told by one who has authority over them, they have rebelled, conscious or not (this assumes that they knew how to and were able to accomplish the given task).

One of the best tidbits of parental advice I ever received dealt with the "why" question.  It ran something like this.  When your child asks you "Why?" when they are told to do something, you tell them that they may not ask "Why?" when told to do something.  They must do.  Right away.  All the way.  And with a good attitude.  Anything but will be met with appropriate discipline.  Once the task is accomplished, then and only then, if the question still remains in the child's heart as to the deep secrets as to why a specific task was demanded of them, may they ask (with respect and honor) "Why did you want me to do that, Daddy?"  99.9% of the time, you'll never get the question.  They really don't care.

There are legitimate why questions.  The other night, my five-year old daughter asked, "Why can we only see part of the moon sometimes?"  It had nothing to do with a command she was given.  Her wonder had turned toward the heavens and she truly wanted to know.  Plunge in, Dad, and feed her curious appetite.

The why-principle remains in the teen years, too.  "Hey, Dad, can I...?"  As a parent, it's important that I understand their request.  Ask questions.  Follow up.  Get the whole picture.  Some questions will require time and prayer.  It might require you to counsel with someone else or search God's word.  After objective consideration, decide.  When you decide, your decision stands.  Your child (under your authority) has one response.  Abide that decision right away, all the way, and with a good attitude.  No "buts" or slammed doors.  No rolled eyes or deep sighs.  They might not like it, but that's life!  That's the real world, and my job as Dad is to prepare my kids for the real world. 

Here's where communication enters the picture.  If after a day or so they would like to know the rationale behind my decision that they carried out, they are free (with respect and honor) to ask me that very thing.  Perhaps the ensuing discussion with my child will cause me to amend such decision in the future.  Perhaps it will help them see clearly the foolishness (if so) behind what they wanted to do and the wisdom (hopefully) behind my counsel.

Walk the halls of most schools.  How many of the kids have been taught to respect the decisions of those in authority, principals and teachers, coaches and counselors?  What a blessing it would be to those in leadership if they encountered young men and women who, when receiving an unpopular or distasteful decision from on high, abided that decision with as much fervor and respect as if they had gotten what they had wanted!  Instead, they deal with deception, disrespect, surly attitudes and blatant disobedience.

As parents, let's squash the why-question, unless of course our kids are asking about the moon.

Yankee Doodle

My bride and I watched James Cagney's Yankee Doodle Dandy last night, the biopic of American entertainer George M. Cohan. 

I wept.

My boys would say, "So what, Dad?  You weep during every film.  You wept watching The Incredibles."  Well, yeah, that's true.  Truth be told, novels do it, too.

It's not just the good telling of a good story that yanks the tears from my ducts.  It's the character who sets aside his dreams for another.  It's the group that sacrifices all for others or for some ideal.  It's love, extraordinary, difficult, pained, strained, sacrificial love.

Yankee Doodle Dandy was a great film.  If for no other reason, it's a renter to see James Cagney dance with an energy and beauty I'd seen from Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor in Singing in the Rain.  Typically, folks breaking spontaneously into dance seems hokey.  When folks do it with the flare that these gents do it, it's worth the price of admission.  Cagney's dancing bits come during Cohan's stage acts, so they blend in with the storyline.  Even if they didn't, they'd be worth including.  Wow.  Here's a brief scene near the end where he does spontaneously break into a bit of tap.  His feet testify to his joy.



I was set to sobbing, though, because "they don't make movies like that anymore."  Like what?  Patriotic movies about patriotic people.  Cohan wrote plays, skits, music, and musicals that testified to the beauty that was America.  "You're a Grand Old Flag."  Heard any soaring songs lately about our nation's banner?  Lots of laments about what it's become but few to make the heart soar and the pride to swell.

Bald, unashamed patriotism.  Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio?

Here's another point.  Never once during any of the dance numbers did James Cagney grab his crotch.  Never once did he thrust his pelvis in mock intercourse.  He did write a song for Mary, the woman he so adored.  And when he proposed to her, he offered her, for the first time, a kiss of sweetness to seal the deal.  I only saw his tongue, though, when he spoke.  It was unnecessary for the director to convey the depth of love they felt for one another by showing them clenched in a Captain Kirk-dinner-eating kiss or disrobe into some knot of humanity achievable by Cirque de Soleil but not by any of us.  The film depicted their love through character development.  Through the eyes.  Through the dialogue.  Through the story (which is why Pixar continues to win the homerun derby).

Another point.  I saw depths of sorrow, depths of concern, depths of anger, depths of frustration, and not once did I hear anything that I couldn't type without symbols.  Not one blurp of profanity.  It wasn't needed.  My five- and seven- year olds could be in the room, and I didn't have to fear what they might hear or see.  They might not sit through the whole movie, but they could without my fearing what might be vomitted from the screen.

Can you name a movie, a movie targeted to adults, that kids could watch (if they wanted to) that wouldn't make your average parent blush?  Anyone?  Me, either.  In all honesty, it broke my heart a bit in Toy Story 3, a film targeted more toward children though a very mature (in the good sense) movie, when they included Barbie's admiration for Ken's ascot.  Over the kids' heads?  Some, not all.  Necessary to convey their attraction?  Nope.

There are thousands of movies of amazing quality (acting, cinematography, story, and sometimes song and dance) out there.  You'll not find them on ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox.  You'll not find them at the local cineplex.  You might find them in a small corner on a single shelf at your local movie rental store titled "classics" or buried as needles in haystacks among the fields upon fields of other films.  You might stumble upon a couple at your local Redbox.  You will find them en masse at Netflix if you are willing to pay the fee.  The best place I have found such gems is on Turner Classic Movies, and it's almost worth the price of cable.  I have little to commend Mr. Turner's politics, but he has created a special thing with TCM.

As I went to bed last night, I pondered the mythical land that birthed the likes of George M. Cohan, a land reflected and honored in his artistry, and a land chest-deep in sacrificial nobility when the movie commemorating him was filmed (1942). 

What a great movie.  There are still films and stories out there that tell about this legendary place called America.  It just takes a little work to find them.

The silenced pulpit

The one place folks should expect to go and get a clear barometric reading on the political scene is the church, but for fear of losing their tax-exempt status, most churches have been bludgeoned into a pledge of silence over issues political.

Constitutionally, this should NOT be so, and in actuality it is not so.

The Alliance Defense Fund, the white-hat version of the ACLU, has done the leg-work for pastors and church members for determining what you really can and cannot do in church.  You'd be surprised.  This link will take you to a wealth of information for ensuring your church keeps its people informed and does not run afoul of the ever-growing Big Brother.

1776

The Declaration of Independence in its entirety.  If you haven't read it in awhile, now's a great time to read what impelled our Founders to shake its ties with Britain (highlights, mine).  Note especially the reasons listed for the break.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

• He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
• He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
• He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
• He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
• He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
• He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
• He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
• He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
• He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
• He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
• He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
• He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
• He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
• For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
• For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
• For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
• For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
• For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
• For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
• For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
• For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
• For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
• He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
• He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
• He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
• He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
• He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Sovereign God or volitional man?

Those who have been saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone have likely run headlong into the mountainous dilemma of whether God is sovereign over all of his creation or whether man has free will.  Many who are not Christian but have studied what Christianity is and means have also snagged themselves upon this horn.

I listened to a sermon by John MacArthur recently where he handled this very topic.  MacArthur presents his message not based upon his thoughts or upon what other philosophers have philosophized but upon what the Bible says.  He does so in a very "just the facts, ma'am" manner.  Plain and simple.

If it's a topic with which you've wrestled, you might find this audio link compelling.  It's 55 minutes, but it'll be worth your missing Dancing with the Stars for one night.