IF IT’S FUN, ITS SIN chapter 18

(Parenthetically speaking…

We hand a medical emergency at church this morning. A dear lady from a care center passed out during the announcements. She was unresponsive so 911 was called. We always have a break for coffee and sweets after the announcements so the timing disturbed very little. We just had a longer break. They revived her and she stayed. When the pastor got going with his sermon – good job, but the way – the two ladies on either side talked to her the rest of the service, albeit quietly. However, since everyone was aware and it was disruptive, I want to congratulate the pastor who kept right on preaching. I could never have done it.

Reminds me of the first medical emergency in a church I had observed. I hadn’t been in Saskatoon very long. Our tradition was to have the staff sit on the platform. It happened while the congregation was singing “A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Lorne, our head usher noticed a senior saint collapse in the third row from the front.” How he did it I don’t know? I didn’t see it happen. But Lorne and a couple of other ushers quickly walked up the aisle with a stretcher they had strapped to a pipe in the lobby, and picked the man up. A doctor met them in the lobby and the ambulance was there almost immediately with barely a disturbance in the service at all. Very few even knew what had happened. It was the smoothest thing I ever saw.)

Not every church was like mine. There were some that were stricter than ours, and some way more liberal. I’m talking socially, not theologically although that is also true. About the time I was making my list and checking it twice, I was thinking that all churches were pretty much alike, at least protestant ones. I knew the Jewish and Catholic faiths were unique. I had visited both of them.

No one got out of elementary school in my church without knowing the fundamental rules for right and wrong. It started with the Ten Commandments. There was a lot of confusion over exactly what it meant to not take the Lord’s name in vain. Was “gull darn it” swearing.” What about “son of a gun.” How about gosh, golly, jeez, gee whiz, shucks, or piss. Piss sounded bad. It was a bodily function and polite people never used that word even when one had to go and take a ---- (can’t say it). That all seemed to be verboten. We all knew the F--- word and the S--- words were bad, very bad. You could get your mouth washed out with soap for uttering such profanity. If you said anything negative with the words Jesus or God or added the word damn, you got the belt. You even had to be careful how you sang, “Jesus Loves Me.” You had to watch your tone and sound like you meant it. We would be frowned at or shushed when we used even an unknown word on that unpublished list of naughty words even if we didn’t know the word was on the list. Since many of these things floated around you at school, knowing the right from wrong language was hard work.

We certainly didn’t understand “have no other gods before me.” We had heard most of the Bible stories about idols being smashed and destroyed, you know, the golden calf and all. We were pretty sure we were OK on that one. No one had any little golden calf like statues in their room.

We were all ready to argue about keeping the Sabbath day holy. We knew that in our tradition it was Sunday. First, was it Saturday and then Sunday and what was wrong with making Wednesday the Sabbath? It would be nice to have another day off in the middle of the week. Church kids hated the Sabbath because it meant you could not do anything but rest and read or play very quietly. I wanted to scream. I gave up naps before kindergarten. This seemed to be extreme punishment to me. I would have rather has the switch.

You could get slapped around for not honoring your father and mother, especially your mother. Never, never did anyone say anything bad about his or her mom and no one sassed her. If they did they would have been whacked. That was a universal law, I think. I think that is always why kids are ready to fight when something bad is said about their mother. Invoking the word mother in a bad way was almost the ultimate sin.

Do not murder or commit adultery were no big deal. Never! Didn’t even cross our minds even when we said, “I’m going to kill you.”  All that really meant was that I was really, really made at you.

Stealing on the other hand was a problem. Bobby, up the street from me, had a neighborhood gang (sort of) and to get into his gang you had to steal either a comic book or an air tire cap off a parked car in the neighborhood. Tire air caps were cool in the 50’s. They weren’t just little black caps to cover the stem. I don’t remember all the designs, but Standard Oil’s cap had a cool crown. All the oil companies had their own designs. I stole both caps and comics and graduated to a couple of candy bars along the way. I don’t know why I stole comics. I read the ones my brother bought. They were not that important to me. I guess I did it to be accepted. Being accepted at the beginning of puberty is very important. Now as an old man, it makes no sense. Youth is such a small smidgen of life, but critical.

Bearing false witness had something to do with lying — I think. Maybe it was about telling lies about other kids. Well, some of them deserved it. They were mean and nasty. Some of it was just retaliation for something they did. Most of it was just to make yourself look better in someone else’s eyes while making the other one look worse. That never worked. We used to always say. “Sticks and Stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” That’s not true. Names cut to the quick and don’t heal very fast at all.

I certainly didn’t want any of my neighbor’s wives. I didn’t want a wife at all. I probably wanted some of my neighbor’s things. On the other hand, I lived in a poor neighborhood and we all pretty much had the same things. Well, not all of us.

Beyond the Ten Commandments, the for sure no-no’s were smoking, drinking, chewing, dancing and playing cards. When I got older I was surprised that having sex out of wedlock was not on that stated list. I guess we were just supposed to know that one. When rock and roll came along, music was added to the list of evils. There use to be evangelists who went around the country telling teens and their parents about the horrors of the syncopated beat and the evils of the devils music. It was all based in Africa, you know. I was never much into the music of the day but music was not a big deal to me. After saying that, I find it unusual that when I hear one of those old songs I can often sing along with them. Maybe I absorbed more than I thought. Most of that was pre-rock and roll so I guess I was OK. I always loved “Flying Purple People Eater.” Weird song.

Beyond the basics the list got pretty bazaar. That’s why I have always said, “If it’s fun, its sin.” Please, if you know of other no-nos, please add them to this list. I know this is not anywhere complete: movies (especially drive ins), bowling, roller-skating, pool halls, cruising, jukeboxes (it was really what was in the box), nothing good happens after midnight, sports on Sunday, almost anything on Sunday that wasn’t reading or sleeping, and… I’m going to stop and let you give me more if you will please. If your ideas come in, you will find them in the comment section. I did this in an adult Sunday school class years ago and the list was over 80 things. I had heard them all at one time or another, and didn’t believe very many.