Shade Tree Wisdom 1/25/10

Rules are rules, or are they?

This Shade Tree Wisdom is sparked by Miss Manners' Sunday column. One item deals with the question, “At a dinner table, is the bread and butter plate on the left side of the dinner plate, or the right?” The questioner had been at a dinner where 80 people had used the plate on their right. Miss Manners' reply ”Even 80 wrongs don’t make a right”. The plate you use is on the left, so your water and wine glasses have room on the right. So 80 guests did it wrong. Well, 79 did, and the 80th had to fall in line if he wanted to use a plate too.

But none of them died of food poisoning or some other thing when they “sinned” that way.

To me, it brings up the matter of the Way of Salvation. Jesus Christ, the very Son of God, who suffered, died, and rose again for the ‘sins of the whole world’ as St. John said, claimed what? Why, He said and taught, “No one comes to the Father But By ME, since “I am The Way, the Truth, and the Life”.

But many deny that, or disclaim that, or sneer at the truth because “there are many ways to get there”, or “all roads lead to heaven’, or “I’m too good to be denied”. Or the one so often clung too, ‘That is too narrow. You’re being exclusive”. The world is full of such statements, and such false beliefs, and the devil jumps with glee at that.

And the end result of that is terrible, it is not heaven. It is not the place that Jesus tells us “I am, going to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also.” John 14. This is a truth I believe now, and will believe so long as God allows me breath. And, Like St. Peter, I will always remind you of these things even though you are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body”. 2 Peter 1, 12.13.

In the other item Miss Manners is asked about dress for a funeral. This sparked by a letter stating, “I like to wear black for funerals because it suits my mood, and it’s a way for assembled group at services to express their sense of loss at the deceased”. But, she goes on, so many close friends of the departed seem to want to wear flowers and pastels with the idea, “he wanted us to celebrate life”. Miss Manners replied, in part, ”she is with you in the hope that her own death would not be greeted cheerfully”.

I am reminded of the mourning the Israelites did, for Moses, for Miriam, for Aaron etc. 30 days. That was the standards.

I don’t go to many funerals lately, but the dress expresses a sense of loss at the deceased. And after Lutheran funerals, friends often speak of the Christ the friend believed as his Savior. That really celebrates life, and that is the kind I would hope at my departure also. “He believed Jesus Christ died for Him”. That celebrates eternal life.

GPD 1/25/10