Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Do not drag me away with the wicked,
    with those who do evil,
who speak cordially with their neighbors
    but harbor malice in their hearts.
Repay them for their deeds
    and for their evil work;
repay them for what their hands have done
    and bring back on them what they deserve.

• Psalm 28:3-4

“Let evil recoil on those who slander me;
    in your faithfulness destroy them.

• Psalm 54:5

“‘Do not hate a fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in their guilt.

• Leviticus 19:17

Whoever spares the rod hates their children, but the one who loves their children is careful to discipline them.

• Proverbs 13:24

Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray.

• Proverbs 10:17

“A good way to use the ‘Cursing’ Psalms is in some such way as this-‘Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? … I hate them with perfect hatred.’ Ask yourself what is it that hates God? Nothing and no one hates God half as much as the wrong disposition in you does. The carnal mind is ’enmity against God’; what we should hate is this principle that lusts against the Spirit of God and is determined to have our bodies and minds and rule them away from God. The Spirit of God awakens in us an unmeasured hatred of that power until we are not only sick of it, but sick to death of it, and we will gladly make the moral choice of going to its funeral. The meaning of Romans 6:6 is just this put into Scriptural language—’Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him.’ The ‘old man’ is the thing the Spirit of God will teach us to hate, and the love of God in our hearts concentrates our soul in horror against the wrong thing. Make no excuse for it. The next time you read those Psalms, which people think are so terrible, bring this interpretation to bear on them.”

• Oswald Chambers, Biblical Psychology (Daily thoughts for Disciples, August 5)

The two youngest grandchildren do not like each other.  Okay, the younger one may have a twisted idea of liking someone.

The eleven-year-old granddaughter is an introvert.  She naturally wants her space, and she is ready to defend her space.

Her eight-year-old brother, almost nine and old enough to know better, is an extrovert, but he takes it too far.  He has been told hundreds of times not to violate other people’s personal space.  As his fifteen-year-old brother states, “If the other person is close enough to punch you in the nose, you are too close.  Back out of range and they may not even get mad at you.”

But in three weeks of babysitting, I am convinced that he thinks that a shove or punch from a fist is the greatest form of showing one’s love.  He definitely has this desire to do everything that he is told by a parent or grandparent not to do.  He even says that he knows how to do …  The ellipsis stands for whatever he has in mind, thus he never does anything wrong, ever.  Two-year-olds have that attitude, but as his teenaged brother stated, “He is two to the third power.”  Note 2 to the third power = 2*2*2 = 8.  In another six weeks, or is it seven, we’ll have to adjust the math.

One parent is too tired and the other is waiting for him to grow out of it.  I was just glad that my time of babysitting was coming to a close.

But as soon as I would turn my back after separating them as elbows had already flown so that the eleven-year-old could obtain space, I would come into the room and he would be looking over her shoulder while she played a video game, pressing his chest against her back and shoulder, leaning his head forward.  She looked like a two-headed person.  They could not be any closer if they were wearing the same clothing.

It is as if he was given the lecture about her body changing and he demanded a front-row seat.

I shake my head and when I am not looking … POW!

He doesn’t cry.  Sure, she gets into trouble for throwing a punch, but he gets sent to his room. He wants plausible deniability.  His grandfather just thought he heard a punch thrown and landed. He doesn’t even rub the spot.  He just goes back to her shoulder to become her second head.

The dream is that at some point they will like each other.  At some point, they will want to be friendly.  At some point they might need that abused shoulder to be the shoulder to cry on.  But some effort has to be taken, and some form of discipline has to deter the initial activity and the desire to be that close or even closer to someone who demands distance.

Odd, the eleven-year-old is the one who runs across the room in the morning and in the evening and leaps into the air for me to catch her and if I do not squeeze hard enough for her to think she was hugged by a grizzly bear, she’ll say, “Nope!  Gotta do it again, Opa!”

She loves close contact, but only when she wants it, and only from whom she wants it.  I do not think a child that is almost nine years old is too young to grasp that.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.