Jonathots Daily Blog
(2029)
The Good Book tain’t good unless it makes good things happen when people are thrown together.
A few days ago, after one of my shows, I was getting ready to pack up my books when a teenage boy inched his way to my side. Apparently he had stood around for a good half-hour while people talked to me, looking for a chance to have a private moment.
He wasted no time.
“There’s a girl I like. How can I ask her out on a date?”
I paused for a moment, trying to make sure I didn’t come across surprised, alarmed OR amused. I guess he chose to ask me the question because he knew I wouldn’t be around tomorrow to tease him about it. Or he thought I might be one of those “cool adults” who would give him a real answer instead of one that’s canned, sealed and labeled “for grown-up consumption.”
My answer was simple. I told the young man to figure out what he liked, take the things that came to his mind and start doing them for the girl he was interested in.
He thought that was really nifty. (Forgive me. I guess “nifty” is no longer used. Let us just say he was impressed.)
His last words were: “I can do that. Because it’s about me.”
As he raced away, I had to chuckle. You see, all I had given him in the way of advice was a remake on the Golden Rule—“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
But you see, it worked, was valuable and was understandable to him because it’s true.
We spend entirely too much time talking about the Good Book as if it’s suspended in mid-air, on gossamer wings, with the supernatural breath of the divine Creator.
Shoot. If it doesn’t work on earth, it sucks.
You see, it’s easy to go from something that is “for bidding” to something that can become “forbidding.”
The gospel that was put together as a means of inviting all of humanity to discover its better side and therefore generate salvation in our souls can just as easily be turned into a message of hatred, prejudice, incrimination and selfishness.
So let me give you a clue:
- I don’t recommend agnosticism. It turns you into a jaded grouch, critical of human life while devoid of any eternal possibility.
- I don’t recommend religion. It keeps you panting for heaven while simultaneously missing buckets of opportunity on earth.
Here’s what I’ve discovered: if you find something that works in everyday life, it won’t take you too long to discover that this same idea is in the Good Book.
Don’t try to go to the Good Book to explain everything you see in life. Get rid of your fear of living and in so doing, discover the three or four things that universally work. Then go read your Good Book and be delighted when you find out that God thought it up millions of years ago.
No wonder that book itself tells us that everything written within its pages can be boiled down to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
It is “for bidding” others, welcoming them to your life, removing the anger of “forbidding” personal contact.
And when all the chickens come to roost, you find out, like this young man will certainly discover, that the Golden Rule even works with dating.
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Jonathots Daily Blog 