The Don't System and the Do Way

Our friend Carlos, one of the owners of Area 15, led us in a fascinating conversation Wednesday morning. He is walking us through the book of Galatians when he is with us and was talking about chapter 4.

Carlos referred to the Apostle Paul's references to the law as "The Don't System." Don't lie. Don't rape. Don't spit on your brother. This system is based on external motivation and is primarily rooted in fear of consequences and punishments. Although such mechanisms of control help to bring order to society they don't go far enough because they don't create mature and loving people. Someone observed that the don't people don't throw very good parties!

The question came up about what happens when you do the very things forbidden by the don't system? George suggested saying "sorry" which gave us a good laugh! And though that is a good thing to do we all intuitively sensed that it would not be enough. Carlos said that if the cop pulled you over for speeding and you told him you were going home to do the dishes for your wife you would probably still get the ticket.

Carlos also suggested that the don't system is part of the child mentality and not the mature adult. It might prevent us from kicking each other but that is hardly enough to make for good relationships with others. We laughed when someone suggested that the not kicking would probably be "a good start."

We then switched gears and talked about "The Do Way" of living our lives. This way is all about faith and internal motivation. This is the way that we become mature loving people. By focusing on the positive things that we can do to make our relationships with others more satisfying we grow in ways that we could never grow by focusing on the don't system with its rules and restrictions.

We explored the question, "What would someone have to do to be your friend? Sheila said we could help her clean her house which gave us a good laugh. George said that a friend should be honest and not make up stories about having more than they really do. Ron said that a friend should be willing to listen and talk about things that really matter.

For some reason we ended up talking about the things we all liked about our friend Rick. Rick has a great sense of humor and has made many of the signs we hang at the free store. One of our favorites was when he wrote on the sign on the front door, "The Free Store is Closed Because It is Not Open."