Friday, June 11, 2010

Thoughts For The Weekend

Nobody's perfect.  We all know that.  We've all done something wrong.  We've all broken the law.  But we don't have to necessarily break the law of the land (i.e. civil or criminal law of the city, state or country in which we live) to do something wrong, do we?  We can cheat on our spouse or our significant other.  Now, this won't bring about a jail term or cite us a fine, but is there anyone out there who would say that isn't wrong?  We can lie and say false and hurtful things about somebody behind their back.  This won't bring a court date and a verdict, but is there anyone out there who can honestly say that what I just described isn't wrong?  So, I have a few questions that I want you to think about over the weekend.  I want you to seriously think about them, as will I.

1)  Can you think back to a time in your life where you have done or said something that you knew was wrong, even though you didn't break the law?

2)  Why are those things wrong, if they didn't really break any law that our city, state, or nation has set into place?

3)  If you're not guilty before mankind (city, state, or national law) for doing these wrong things, then before whom does your guilt lay?

4) What do you do with your guilt?

I hope you all will seriously consider these four questions, and I'd like to hear what you honestly think, even if your answer is "I don't know".  I know this is a very personal subject, so if you still want to respond, but don't want to comment publicly, you can send me an email, located in the "Contact" tab at the top of the page.  It will stay private.

I'm going to think over these questions, as well, and I'll be back Monday with my response to them.

2 comments:

Teri Dufilho said...

just right off the bat, what i do know, is that when i've broken man's laws, i don't have nearly the same guilt as when i know i've gone against what is just basically already the knowledge of right/wrong in my heart.....the former bears only the guilt of the consequence of getting caught (rolling thru stop sign=ticket)....but the latter bears extreme guilt (like lying to someone, or gossiping, not helping a neighbor when i know there's a need, etc..).....much deeper guilts...

Teri Dufilho said...

well, maybe i need to explain such a bold statement like "breaking man's laws only brings me guilt because of getting caught, like a traffic ticket".....
i mean, sometimes man's law happens to intesect with what we already in our hearts know to be right/wrong, like say, theft.....in that case, if i broke the "man's law" of "do not steal", then it would bring me much guilt, not because some man said it, but because it's something that i know in my heart is wrong.....
but i don't steal, i just roll through stop signs sometimes.....ok, i will stop it....because i really should obey the law of the land, even at midnight, with no traffic in sight..... :)