Legislating Love

I’ve been thinking all day about responses to comments and concerns around recent violent acts in the U.S.  I will not comment on social media sights because people don’t read those to learn or be enlightened and I do not want to be attacked or asked to defend myself.  I am not a debater and cannot eloquently supply support for my thoughts and opinions so I do not want to wade into those waters.

I am greatly concerned for the decline in the moral character of the U.S. Society as a whole and the resulting consequences of this moral decline.  The acts of violence are only one visible outcome of this decay.  In my search for words to understand or help others I came to my blog site and as I contemplated words to type I perused old posts and found this gem: https://bikegirl2.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/morality-laws-and-rights/

It is impossible to legislate morality as I stated in that previous post.  People who will live moral, upright lives of integrity will do that whether there is a law about it or not.  Those opposed to a given standard will push back and rebel whether it is a custom, practice, or law.  Therefore, it does not truly matter what is legal or illegal when looking at the extremes of right and wrong.  Laws will help keep those in the middle who wander to close to an edge in check.  Times of indecision, anger, or confusion might find someone daring to test the waters but a law and fear of the consequences could keep someone safe from going too far adrift.

Now just like morality cannot be legislated neither can love and kindness be legislated.  I know that no one is looking to pass a law mandating a love your neighbor behavior but maybe that is what we should be debating.  We are debating gun laws, immigration rights, and fighting terrorists.  Are these not the distractions stemming from lack of love and kindness to your neighbor? A quote I saw today was, “it was not the gun in his hand but evil in his heart.”  That is absolutely true but we are discussing the gun and not the evil.  How do we change an evil heart?  We try by wanting to change the legal standing of a tool used in an evil act.  An act that is already illegal.

We have legislated the act to be illegal and that hasn’t stopped the behavior.  Now we want to add legislation banning or greatly restricting the tool used in the act.  That will have no greater effect on the curbing of evil acts than the already illegal act has had.  We need to get at the root of the issue.  We need to get at the heart.  And heart issues cannot be solved through legislation.

Morality will only be addressed when Christians and places of faith become the place of meeting needs.  We cannot depend on a corrupt immoral government to provide an avenue of morality.  Faith tribes must meet the needs of our neighbors in order to right the moral compass of our nation.  In this same vane, Christians must lead the way in living lives of compassion, kindness, and love to fight the evil fabric working to destroy what is good around us.

Christians living as the world lives will not bring about the change in a moral righting and pure of heart cleansing that we need in society.  We must be set apart as Holy as God’s righteousness among men.  When we live in such a way as to preach the morality we want legislated and live daily the love and kindness we need fighting back evil hearts and minds then, then we can stop mass shootings, violent protests, riots, fear, and division.

We don’t need more laws because we can’t even enforce the ones we already have.  We need a change much deeper than behavior in order to stop the violence we dread hearing about in the news almost daily.  We need a change of heart.  Recently I saw a statement asking why advertisers will spend millions of dollars on a 30 second to one minute commercial believing it will influence behavior to make money, yet we do not believe that images and ideas consumed in hours of video games, TV, and movie watching will not influence our thinking and behaviors related to violent and hateful tendencies?  That is a very valid question.  What you take in changes you and then comes out of you.  Be careful what you take in.

They will know you are Christians by your love not your pop culture prowess.  Be in the world and not of the world.  This will change the world.

 

Charity changes you

Something happened on the way home tonight that made me realize how much being involved with health related charities has changed my thinking.

I have known for a long time that my everyday way of looking at businesses and events has changed because everything looks like a sponsor or a fundraiser opportunity to me. There are not many things that I do that I don’t think, “how could this be a fundraiser event?” There aren’t many places that I go that I don’t think, “I wonder if they would sponsor my cycling team?” Everybody looks like a donor to me, it is just a matter of timing and formulating the correct ask. Then having the courage to ask.

But tonight, something completely different happened.

I was driving along minding my own business ready to be home when I passed a car pulled over at the end of a turn lane, flashers on, angled weird toward the curb, with the driver’s door open. All the other cars were getting around this car just fine so it wasn’t impeding traffic. There wasn’t another car around, so it wasn’t in a wreck. As I approached the car I thought it looked odd, but didn’t seem like anything I needed to be concerned about as no one else seemed all that concerned. As I got next to it I noticed it had handicap tags, but still nothing jumped out at me to make me think I needed to get involved. Then it happened, the change in my thinking . . .

In the few seconds it took me to go past this car and through the light heading on my merry way my mind was flooded with the following thoughts . . .

What if the driver has MS and just had an unexpected attack and now cannot drive?
What if that driver also cannot dial their phone to get assistance?
What if that driver has epilepsy and had a seizure?
What if . . . what if . . . what if?

I couldn’t keep going.

I made a U-turn and pulled over in the turn lane on the opposite side of the road, engaged my flashers and walked back to this car. I could not pass by a car with a handicap tag, pulled over to the side of the road, and think everything was okay. I HAD to go back and check on them.

Turns out they had a flat tire and had called roadside assistance to come change it. There was no medical emergency, the driver was not alone, there was a teenager in the passenger seat and everything was fine without the need for my assistance. I double checked that they really were fine and that someone was coming and then I left.

(After getting back in my car I realized that even though my altruistic instincts made me pull over, my law enforcement instincts also kicked in and I had to laugh at myself at how I approached the car. I wasn’t even trained in traffic stops because I was a Federal Agent and we only learned how to do felony stops, but I sure enough approached that car like a cop. Probably because of all the traffic stops gone wrong videos they showed us in training that have me scared to death of traffic stops and why I would not want to be a local LEO).

Anyway, back to the story – before my involvement with BikeMS and spending so much time learning about the disease and getting to know people with MS and what their lives are like, I never would have thought through possibilities other than “did someone just have a heart attack?” Having spent over 20 years raising funds and awareness for MS I thought through symptoms that might have occurred that would have a car pulled over at a weird angle on the side of the road and a driver be in need. You see my friends with MS never know when their symptoms may strike, or to what severity they may strike when they do. A slight tingle in their toes as they leave the office might become a paralyzed leg by the time they reach that particular intersection.

My rides with Pedaling for Parkinson’s taught me that a PD patient might get to the point that they have to pull over and then can’t dial a phone because of tremors. I know this first hand because before medication my essential tremors could keep me from dialing a phone on some occasions. If my adrenaline was up from excitement, fear, or nervousness then my hands would be rendered useless. When my house was broken into the first time, I barely got 911 dialed. It took several attempts to get it right because my tremors kept making me miss the numbers I was aiming at. I don’t have that problem anymore with the meds I’m on – thank you Dr. Williamson!

I guess what strikes me the most about tonight’s thoughts and events is the pervasiveness of the change in me related to the charity rides I started because I once thought, “I can ride a bike and that looks like fun.” Another word for charity is love. My church has been doing a 40 day study on living a Love First attitude and now we are launching a new vision for the church that will be based on this concept of Love First. We all know that love changes things. Love changes people in ways nothing else can. So to does Charity.

I hope tonight’s lesson is that I should stop sooner rather than thinking “aw they are okay” and driving on. I want charity/love to kick in before I pass the car and have to make a U-turn. I’m glad I was able to process through possibilities quickly enough to react soon enough that I actually did react and not just drive on. I needed to stop more for me than for them. I needed to stop to know that charity really has changed me. It isn’t just a slogan it is something real – I don’t just ride, I BikeMS. It isn’t just me on a bicycle anymore, it hasn’t been for a while now.

It is life changing, thought permeating, turn the car around, Love First action on the road.