Wednesday, January 7, 2004
All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given
us the ministry of reconciliation.
(2 Corinthians 5.18
NRSV)
I had a good laugh at a story in the newspapers sometime back about a teacher who found a
novel way to make students pay for their transgressions. Troublemakers at
Riverside-Brookfield High in suburban Chicago are being forced to serve after-school
sentences in the Frank Sinatra Detention Club. There, for 30 minutes, they must sit utterly
still--no talking, no homework, no snoozing--and listen to Ol'Blue Eyes croon songs from a
by-gone era. "The kids hate it. They're miserable," reports teacher Bruce Janu, a Sinatra fan
who devised the club as a way to make detention more fun for him, less so for the kids."It just
got to where I couldn't stand it," said one senior. "It was SO BORING." Janu isn't totally
heartless though. He lets students sing along if they want--but nobody does.
It is important for people to learn that choices have consequences. In terms of their later
success, it is one of the most important lessons that they will learn. Adults who are continually
bailing their children out when they make mistakes are cheating their children of one of life's
most important lessons: we reap what we sow. Someone has put it this way. There are two
major pains in life: the pain of discipline and the pain of regret.
And God is always ready to offer us reconciliation.
Dear God, forgive me and help be reconciled. Amen.
Ron
Newhouse
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