While I completely enjoy my current career path, every once in a
while something comes up that makes me feel a bit misplaced.
I brought Kelson to an ECFE class, where the last half hour the
parents leave the children (I think there's an adult in the room with
them) and have some discussion time. Yesterday a kind parent brought
in Krispy Kreme donuts, so life was good.
We were talking about discipline, and a mother next to me said
something like this: "I have this book by Blair, from The Facts of
Life, and she said that if your child says a naughty word, you go
to the bathroom with two glasses. Take one glass and rinse it out in
the sink, and take the other glass and rinse it out with water from
the toilet. Then take the glasses to the kitchen and fill them with
milk. Ask your child, 'Which glass do you want to drink out of?' Tell
them that just like you don't want to drink from a dirty glass, Jesus
doesn't want to hear dirty words, and you need to keep your mouth
clean, by only using good words. This is such a great book; she has
such amazing ideas. That Blair, she's a thinker, she really is."
There were so many things to say right then... most of which would
have gotten me permanantly ostracized from the group. I just continued
to eat my donuts.
Anyway, if you're interested in the book, I found it. Check out
Welchel's Creative Correction for all the amazing
details.
9 comments:
This whole cursing thing seems pretty spotty in the Bible - best I can figure is they use this passage to lobby against it (next) - but it seems more about not lying and perhaps not commiting heresy or something - swearing isn't specifically mentioned and doesn't actually seem to be the thrust of the passage.
3) Jesus says that whatever comes out of the mouth defiles a man. Bad language shows him to be dirty on the inside, for it comes from the heart. Lying reveals a bad condition within a man. See Matthew 15:17-20. Jesus commanded that we should not bear false witness. Matthew 19:18.
But there is some very good advice from the site I was on, including a new activity you can share with your group:AIM: to impress upon my class the seriousness of lying and swearing, and to guide them to resolve to keep their thinking and their language free from both sins.
POINT OF CONTACT: Bring to class five apples in a sack. Tell the class that there are seven apples in the sack. Tell one member of your class to tell another that there are seven apples in the sack. Tell him to "pass it on." After a few of them have told each other that there are seven apples in the sack, take out the five apples. Then ask them this question: Because I said it and you said it and you said it, did that change the fact that there were only five apples? No, of course not. If we had all sworn or used profane language with our statement that there were seven apples in the sack, even this would not have changed the fact that there were only five apples in the sack. A lie is still a lie, and nothing can change fact!
Also, be aware, that lying signifies different things depending on your current relationship to God:
Lying and cursing in a Christian’s life are definitely signs that the old wicked flesh is being victorious; lying and swearing in the life of a non-Christian are indications of his unsaved condition.
Baptist City Sunday School Lessons
Ah...I see a possible difference between Ms. Whelchel and yourself (quote at bottom). How do you know when it comes to God whether you're serving your family or God - is it innate because of your saved status? I mean, it's not like God asks you to sacrifice your son anymore, like Abraham. Are the challenges just smaller in nature - i.e. do you have to pick between Sunday morning service and your kid's birthday and choose Sunday morning service? Do you hear about a great lecture by Dobbs (from the moral families group) and skip out on your kids' soccer games or band recital? Do you vote Bush even though he's taking away your future and imperiling the ability of your kids to find a good job or go to college because you have to use that money for retirement instead or maybe even blowing up your kids in his personal wars? Can you claim God told you to stay home and watch Days of Our Lives instead of taking the kids to the park and not be considered crazy? I guess I'd know these things if I was saved. Most of the people I know who are saved attest to having a lot of sin in their lives before they were saved - prostitution, kids out of control, drugs, sleeping around, cheating, etc. - I don't have a lot of sin, at least not the way I calculate it (maybe the swearing adds up) - does this mean God is punishing me by not giving me enough sin to cause me to want to be saved in the same way as people like Blair. Does my lack of desire to sin make me a sinner?
"I can attest with all my heart that Lisa Whelchel Cauble is a lady who loves and serves the Lord first and her family second."
Once more!
It seems that Private Ryan is going to hell for swearing - or at least the ABC affilitates are! If you say "f" word in an email, do you have repent? I mean, can you say it without thinking "-uck"? Is there a loophole? You're using it to condemn others who used it, therefore it doesn't count - like when little kids yell it about a hundred times because you used it once by accident and then cry because "you said it too"?
Damn it, Scooter, get your own blog!
Just answer my questions and I'll desist. Did you try Blair's glass trick on your wife?
Glass trick? Huh?
Damn, this reading thing is hard. Me confused.
The glass trick from the original post, with one washed in the toilet. I think if you're willing to do this sort of thing to your children, you have to be willing to do it to your spouse. But don't tell her until after she drinks out of one of the glasses, it's funnier that way. Just tell her, "Honey, I think you don't realize it, but you've just learned a lesson..."
Wouldn't it be a sort of "tell" when the milk turns blue in only 1 of the glasses?
And I thought it was just yellow snow to avoid....not I need to watch out for blue milk!!
Yeah, this book sounds crazy and stupid. Isn' there something in there about pouring tabasco suace on kids' togues.
The point of the book is not to raise better kids, but to make the few wacked-out Christian parents feel better being nutso.
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