"Train" up a child...

This is the second installment in my series on this election in which I have quite accidentally used the word "Train". In the book of Proverbs 22:6 it says..."Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." We live in a society where a verse such as this one is viewed as being subject to the circumstances the child might find themselves in when infact it is intended to have quite the opposite effect. Rather than admit that we as parents have failed in this our primary responsibility we sanitize the contrary outcomes and rationalize them as being "a part of life." Many times I've heard people expound in amazement at how this or that could occur when "they were raised in a good Christian home" All I can say is "Oh no you dinn-it!" I will admit that I'm an uneducated person who is simple and unlearned, but even I can see that both statements cannot be true. I sat in front of the TV Wednesday night and watched her acceptance speech. I expected Palin to offer something in the way of an explanation as to how I should (despite her own confused priorities) place my trust in her to hold the second highest office in the land. What I got was being told "How dare you hold a woman to that standard, why if she was a man you wouldn't be asking these questions!" But she's not a man is she... interesting isn't it? They played the gender card on me! Is she not a woman? they still give physical birth to children right? they form a bond with them through breastfeeding and caring for them from birth. Men do not...sure, we love our children and we have a unique bond, but it's different...for a very good reason! We, as men SHOULD be the "hunter gatherers" while women are the "nesting nurturers" I can already hear people calling me a "Neanderthal" or a "sexist" and other names designed to encourage me to become "enlightened" and to come into the twenty first century with the rest of us! And yet, for all of our great wisdom we still cry out for answers to our festering problems. What we have here...Is a failure, to communicate! As long as we tell our children "Do as I say, not as I do" they'll do what we do every time! Or when we tell them we love them and then are too busy to spend time with them it doesn't wash, children are much smarter than we think!...and when they make the life altering critical decision as to what they truly believe about you and your feelings toward them your actions carry much much more weight that your words do. Wanna know why people do the screwed up things they do that prompt us to ask the rhetorical question "what were they thinking?" I'll tell you what they were thinking, they were thinking that all their lives their basic needs have been met, all except the biggest one LOVE! So, when they perceive that through some manner of foolishness or ill advised behavior that they might perhaps GET that need met it takes priority over what we call "common sense" and Voila', instant stupidity! Now what? put them in jail, put them on pills, put them in rehab, or even put them in the ground...God gave us His commandments for our benifit because He loves us and doesn't want to see us ravaged by the effects of sin. He also gave us freewill to accept or reject them and Him. Our choices have consequences both present and eternal. My father always told me "Son, you don't have to be smart if you have smart people around you" He knew me pretty well I guess...