One of the biggest struggles Sue and I have had raising kids is trying to discern what is right and wrong. The fact is, not everything is wrong (quite a statement for someone raised in a conservative Pentecostal tradition). Some things are perfectly okay but can become a problem if taken too far or if discernment and discipline are not exercised. We struggle with to what extent video games, TV & movies, the Internet, and the like are appropriate. One thing we don't want to do is make whole categories of activity wrong without discerning that some elements of it may be just fine. I got to thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days, especially as it pertained the things I was taught in church.

We are visiting Pennsylvania this week. We came to attend the wedding of our friends Ben and Molly and to visit friends. For our boys Pennsylvania is home; we were all very excited to make the trip. The wedding was great. My good friend Dr. Joe Modica (the father of the groom and chaplain at Eastern University) did the homily. He was short, gave sound advice, was funny, and very sentimental (= perfect). The reception was a lot of fun. It was relaxed and unlike the weddings I attended as a kid growing up, included lots of dancing. Everyone had a great time. I could have had more fun, though. Let me explain. When I was growing up, in the churches that we attended, dancing was wrong. It may as well have been a creation of Satan himself, and to participate in the activity certainly required a trip to the altar on Wednesday night youth meeting. We were told about the evils of dancing, the feelings that it stirred up, and the activity it would lead to. I remember hearing that Jesus would leave me at the door of the dance; he would not go. If I went there I went alone. Somewhere along the line I came to realize much of that idea was bogus, and yet by that time I just never had the time, opportunity, or even desire to dance. That is the background for the wedding last Saturday night. As I sat watching everyone having so much fun, I began to be a bit annoyed with myself. I wanted to dance, but I was clueless as to how to do it. It seemed like everyone on the floor knew all the moves and the right time to do and say everything. I had no idea what to do, and I guess I'm just too prideful to make a fool out of myself. So my wife and I sat there like boors wishing we had the guts to hit the floor. I was a little miffed that early on I had been fed so much hooey about the evils of dancing. Every form of it was painted with the same evil brush. No discernment whatsoever was exercised as to how some forms might be wholly appropriate and other types not so much. It was all bad, real Christians wouldn't do it.

I love tradition, but not when it simply means one generation passing on its scruples to the next without taking into account the serious questions about why something is right or wrong, important or less so. Every generation has the responsibility to ask these questions. There is nothing more frustrating for a young person than to be told that thus and so is wrong only to find later that whether purposely or not they were misled by those who did not want to do the tough work of discernment. Sue and I have surely been wrong about some things with our kids, but no one can say that we didn't go through the process of asking the serious questions with them as we made our decisions. The good thing is that together we actually found out among other things that Pokèmon cards didn't have demons, Harry Potter was just a story, and that reading The Da Vinci Code wouldn't cause our faith to crumble. Small stuff really, makes you wonder why so much was made of them. Dancing with the Stars is not in my future, but maybe I'll at least give dancing a try at the next wedding I attend.