Real, Raw & Messy

In our free store conversation yesterday the issue of the law/the don't system came up yet again. As a group we apparently have some issues with authority and mechanisms of social control. We talked about how even Jesus didn't blindly follow the laws of his own people and nation. Someone suggested that Jesus wasn't the nice guy that is depicted in much of the traditional church artwork. Unlike most nice guys he managed to make a lot of enemies among the law and order crowd and was eventually crucified among rogues.


We agreed that society could not function without law because many people have not grown up beyond their childish need for rules to govern them. This led us to talk about our own experiences with the law. One of our friends said that the police in the small town where he grew up knew him by name and would pull him over and search his 1968 Camaro on a regular basis. George said that at one point in his life he would fight the police and that he was so strong and wiry that he made it difficult for them to control him. He also told us about getting into a fight with a police officer and having the opportunity to grab the officer's gun and shoot him but didn't do it. Curtis told us that in his experience breaking the law had brought him a lot of pain and heartache.

Sheila said she had always been a good girl and never got in any trouble. We didn't entirely believe this but without witnesses we had no way to dispute it. Although some of us have seen her do an Oyster Shooter at Boardwalk Billy's so we were fairly certain she wasn't telling the whole truth.

We also talked about how not all laws are just and some laws should be opposed. Someone said it was a good thing that people have opposed the slave laws in our own American history or their would still be slavery in this country today. Someone else suggested that drug laws seem to target the poor and the addicts rather than the wealthy dealers and corporate fat cats that smuggle them into the country. This led one of our friends to quote the lines from a metal song by System of a Down/B.y.o.b, "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?" It seemed to us that many laws simply protect the interests of the rich while furthering the oppression of the poor.

Our conversation ended with a bit of a discussion about how keeping the rules might make a person a good citizen but it doesn't mean that you would want that person as a friend. Someone said that the Pharisees in Jesus day probably didn't throw very good parties which gave us a good laugh. And we all agreed that people that play it by the book all the time aren't that much fun to be around. Apparently our free store group likes things a bit real and raw and messy!