Jelly donuts and frat houses

I love crappy gas station cappucino. It's all sugary and nasty at the bottom, and it never has the right amounts of foam or coffee, but I really enjoy it. I don't know why. And, do you know what the perfect compliment to crappy gas station cappucino? Crappy gas station donuts.

The thing about crappy gas station donuts is that you never know how long they have been there. And it doesn't really matter. They taste the same after 4 days on your dashboard as they do when you buy them. It's beautiful. Gas station donuts are impervious to time.

So, imagine that you have a gas station jelly donut in front of you. And as you take the first bite, you come away with a mouthful of frosting, pastry, and wax paper. No jelly. So you take another bite. Still no jelly. Sure, the encrusted sugar frosting and somewhat flaky pastry will satisfy your need for a morning sugar buzz, but that's not why you got the jelly donut.

Sunday morning, as I sat through church, this was all I could think about. As the preacher talked about the tenth commandment, I kept thinking, "Ok, but where's the jelly?" Not once in the entire message did he talk about why coveting is wrong. About why it is one of the ten commandments. He talked plenty about coveting. Defining it, giving examples of it in daily life, and condemning it.

But never once in this message, or the whole series, for that matter, has the jelly really been talked about. That the Ten Commandments are there because God wanted to say to His people, "Listen--I am your God. I am everything. You don't need anything else. So respect that. Honor Me. Worship Me. And I want you to respect other people, too, because I am all that is Loving. Respect your family. Respect other people's lives, because I am all that gives Life. Respect your bodies, because I am all that is Pure. Respect their stuff, because I am all you will need. Respect your relationships with others by being honest, because I am all that is Truth. And you don't need other people's things, or status, or validation, because you have Me. And I know you, and I will take care of you. When you ignore these commandments, it will mess up your relationships on this earth. It will cause problems. But that's because you aren't paying attention to Me. You aren't letting Me be your God."

I think God chose those ten things specifically because each one reflects a human tendency to reject a specific part of His "God-ness." So, the way to deal with those sins is to study that part of His nature. That's the jelly. And that is what has been frustrating me for the past few months of church.

Anyways, in other personal news, the rest of the weekend turned into "My Life: Further Adventures in the Hazing Rituals of Life's Fraternity." If you haven't heard, don't ask me. Ask someone who won't tell you the story and then contemplate downing a bottle of sleeping pills. Or an entire bottle of Robitussin. Or muscle relaxants, sweet muscle relaxants...