Guarding the Edge of Your Relationship

Raised in a strict Seventh Day Adventist home we knew Sabbath began Friday at sundown and ended on Saturday at sundown.  We couldn't do a lot of things we wanted to do on Sabbath.  We  couldn't play or pretend or make-believe unless we did so in such a way as to glorify God. 

It was okay to play church, but not okay to play wild west.

And we could not watch TV. 

Sometimes we felt a yearning for Sabbath to be over.  We couldn't wait.  The church bulletin would print the exact time of sundown, but maybe we had misplaced the bulletin or maybe no one had a watch handy so we would look at the horizon and try to determine if it was okay to stop glorifying God yet.  And then if it seemed close to sundown we would request permission from our nearest parent to commence non-Sabbath activities.

And our father admonished us that we should guard the edges of the Sabbath.  He may have collected that phrase from the prolific writings of Ellen G. White or Sister White as she is sometimes called.  But the gist and philosophy of the phrase is that it's better to prolong the Sabbath than to truncate it.

All somewhat irrelevant to me now as I'm a devout agnostic or a devout atheist depending on how high or low my blood sugar is running.

But today I found myself contemplating the way in which it may be important to guard the edge of a relationship and I'm talking  about the way in which you conduct yourself when your significant other is not around. 

My best friend is a girl and when we met she was married.  This story occurred when we worked together but before we became great friends.  It was New Year's Eve 2007 and as is our custom in the casino business we all congregated after work at another casino.  I had recently changed my voicemail greeting on my phone to something hilarious and was having friends and coworkers call my number so they could listen and get a good chuckle.... but not this girl.  When I told her what number to call she declined... because... she explained... if she called my number, I would have her number... and she was married... and she just wasn't comfortable with that.

That's how you guard the edge of a relationship.  Just abstaining from sexual intercourse is not enough... in my opinion.  You have to respect the other person... you have to respect your relationship together.  And it's better to respect it even more than what the normal standard calls for... better to respect it too much than not enough.

An Atheistic Interpretation of Our Lord

Maybe the reason Jesus cautioned his followers to "Judge not lest ye be judged" is because he sensed they might one day be tempted to condemn gays and lesbians instead of welcoming them and loving them.

Maybe the reason Jesus counseled his followers, "Don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them" is because he recognized that without this guidance, they might one day try to force the children of unbelievers to participate in public school prayer.

Maybe the reason Jesus said to love your enemies and to do good to them that hate you is because he realized without this philosophy, Christians might one day wage war against Muslims.

Maybe, and I'm just spit balling here, maybe the reason Jesus asked his followers to "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" is because he knew that without that advice they might eventually wade into politics and fuck everything up.