Slapped Silly – March 28, 2022 (87/365)

I’m not sure what I want to share with everyone today to keep my thousand word a day streak going, but I’ll just start typing and see where all this is heading.

I feel sorry for anyone who needs to walk up to someone in public, slap him in the middle of his speech, and go back to his seat, telling him to shut up about his wife. I mean, I get it, we’re men. We need to be the gatekeepers, while our wives need to be the nurturers – or, at least that’s what I hear other pastors say, anyway. But the first thing that comes to my mind as I’m trying to let out what I have to think about this issue is that the husband showed weakness. The pros outweigh the cons on this one, in my opinion – because when the image of the man is impacted, the rest of the family is affected, more so if the man does it to himself.

Yeah, I don’t know why I went to that right away, but I will just say this, not necessarily as someone against violence or anything like that – you never give in to your emotions. I say again – NEVER GIVE IN TO YOUR EMOTIONS. This is twice as true when you know that all eyes are on you. One proverb says that even a fool who keeps his peace is considered perceptive. The Fresh Prince should have stayed fresh. Mike Lawrie should have stayed smooth. Sort of makes you want to wish the characters he portrays come to save him.

But then again, we need to go deeper. Don Vito says women and children can afford to make mistakes; they can be careless, but not men. Why did Will (okay, I said his name) ‘break character’?

Actually, before I even go there, I don’t know. I can’t say that was staged. Who wins if it was staged?

Okay going back. What caused Will to be careless? I’m led to think that the marriage was getting to him. And before I go any further, I’m not nitpicking for the sake of putting anyone down – I’d like to think that my goal here is just to really figure out what we can learn from all this, whether we are celebrities or not. But yeah, I’m led to feel sorry for Will because I’m imagining that he is a pretty strong man with a strong character, and the relationship problems have to run pretty deep to get to him. Kind of makes me think that there are times that we need to be strong for our relationships, just as much as we need our relationships to be strong.

When, say, the relationship is compromised, then it’s hard to say that every effort of our being strong would be of use; and on the other side of the coin, a compromised relationship drains us of any strength we have to begin with. And while I’m there, I suppose our relationships are impacted negatively when we lose strength. Relationships are tested – sometimes with positive results, but tested nonetheless – when our strength fails us.

I’m reminded of the value of relationships as a whole. We can certainly stand on our own. But we do not just stand – in fact, we walk, and we run, if we have good relationships to not only give us strength, but also to give us options as to which direction to go. Also, the way I see it, relationships are also celebrations of any overflowing strength we have on our own. Relationships are supplements, as much as they are celebrations of the strength that we have.

Speaking of relationships, something else I pulled out of my head just a couple of hours ago, at a church event – Reconciliation will always be superior to contradiction.

Why do I say this? Now that I think of it, I think it was all triggered by how the speakers at the said event were elaborating on how other religious sects were growing so much faster in numbers, and how they were low-key berating everyone in attendance that we haven’t been doing our part “to spread the Gospel”. I mean, I’d like to believe that these wise men and women were sincere with their words, but I hate how I’m always suspicious of the possibility that what they or any of us really mean by this is “to increase our numbers”.

Which led me to thinking – why aren’t we increasing our numbers, at least according to what statistics have to say? To this, the first answer that came into mind was that we are quite the unique Body. I don’t think we’re as ‘consistent’ as other belief systems; we don’t preach submission and strict adherence to a set of rules, ranging from general conduct to specific food to avoid.

But what about the Ten Commandments? What about the Law? Well, the Law came through Moses, but Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. Christ is the end of the Law, and the beginning of wisdom, and the Author and Finisher of faith to anyone – anyone of any color, profession, preference, independent of past, present, and future works – ANYONE who believes. You can’t expect us to grow AS fast in numbers. We can’t compete with other man-made religions with regards to quantity… but because of Christ and His finished work, we will always win – in fact, we WIN the quality game.

Why do I say this? Well, it’s because Christ’s finished work has rendered us perfect in our entire being. It is as Christ says – since He is the Resurrection and the Life, even if our physical bodies die, our entire beings still live, and because we believe, we will never be subject to oblivion and entropy. That, to me, is absolute quality.

And that’s who Christ is – no matter who we slap, or how weak we are in public, or in private, He paid such a great price for us to be in favor with no less than our Creator, that we could run to Him no matter how cringe we could get.

I’m running out of time. I sincerely hope I added value to you today.

God bless us all.