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Re: Thoughts on Jonah (was Re: Radio Satan)

On Mon, 3 Jun 2002, The Mattrix wrote:
> Yes, God is held to a different standard, but parents, like Him, are
> smarter, stronger, and more mature than their children, and yet they
> punish them for misdeeds all the time. They also change their mind
> regarding the appropriate severity of punishment all the time.

Parents are hardly infallible, though, and they are certainly not *always*
smarter, stronger, or more mature than their children.  Have your parents
never apologized to you for things they did wrong?  My mother, to this
day, regrets cancelling my 15th birthday party in a fit of anger -- and
that was more than half my lifetime ago.  A few days ago, I caught a
preview of _Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_, and there's a scene
in there where Ashley Judd is in the car with her children, and she's
breaking down in tears, and her daughter hesitantly begins to sing to try
to cheer her up.  I thought back to the times when my own parents had
exposed their own vulnerability, and what mixed feelings it brought, as
they clung to me -- I was glad that I could make myself useful and give
them something to lean on, but it was also deeply disturbing to realize
that they were so weak that they might need to lean on me in the first
place.  But learning to accept the flaws and weaknesses of your parents,
and to forgive them for *their* misdeeds, is part of growing up.

> Since they are dealing with their own children, who is to say what the
> appropriate punishment is but them?

Well, social workers, for one -- provided we can trust them.  :)  I don't
care for meddling government types myself, generally, but there is
something to be said for trying to look at parent-child relations from a
more objective point of view.  FWIW, there's a high-profile court case
going on in Canada right now concerning several children who were taken
from their home last year, partly because their very religious parents
insisted on using rods or switches while punishing them.

> Likewise, who has the right to question the Father of us all?

His children, obviously.  Presumably we reach the age of majority, and our
claims will be taken seriously, at *some* point.  :)  Consider, too, how
Philip Yancey once observed, in _Disappointment with God_, that the story
of Genesis (and perhaps the Bible as a whole?) is the story of how God
"learns to be a parent" -- perhaps he made mistakes along the way?

(BTW, one of the things I like about that Isaiah passage that Paul quotes
is the way it indicates God is also the *Mother* of us all.)

--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
 "I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
      Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom

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