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Filter name:”KEYWORD= Profanity: weenie”
Subject Line: “The Catch”
Sender: “Fischtank.com”
I received the above profanity notice following Friday’s Catch about Eloise at the Plaza. It’s only appropriate that the offending Catch would be the one about Eloise, that little six-year-old troublemaker that always played havoc on all the rules. The always-precocious Eloise is up for profanity censure. Once again, Eloise would be proud. This time, it’s her dog, Weenie, who is the cause of a profanity charge. This ranks right up there with little Jackie Paper being dragged into court for marijuana possession all because of “Puff the Magic Dragon.”
Stuff like this is always what happens when you live by rules. All sorts of misassumptions and mistaken identities occur, plus there is the simple fact that just about any rule will have an exception – some situations where it will not apply. There are exceptions to everything. Whoever put “weenie” on the profanity list had no consideration for Eloise or her dog.
Rules require policing, and someone has to do it. In this case it was a spam block, but police can take varying forms. The one unifying factor is that everyone and everything is suspicious. That’s why a life lived by rules is always doomed to fail. There are no rewards for not breaking them, only punishment for when you do. I do this quite often around the house when I pay attention to the rules principle. I become the house police eager to pounce on the next mistake. You can imagine how much fun I am to live with.
This is why we all need an Eloise in some form to rain on our rules parade. Eloise is good for all of us. She shows up the unevenness and sometimes ridiculousness of living strictly by rules.
Only one rule – one law – is necessary. It determines all others and guides our behavior in all things. It is the law of love to which there are no exceptions.
John Fischer The Catch 
This reminds me of a well-known Christian novel I’m reading right now, obviously either self-censored or editorially censored. Where it is quite clear to me that the character the author has created would be saying the “s word” (I’d better not utter it), she has him repeatedly saying “poop”, in a most absurd sounding manner. The rules have failed the intent of the story.
Woe to us if our rules fail the intent of His story!
Thanks for the reminder – when I put others first then things happen in my own life as well.
Absolutely. In Vancouver, we have been beset with rule-makers: modern-day Pharisees, but without any god we know. It’s now illegal to smoke practically anywhere (although marijuana seems to be exempt from that rule); “traffic calming” measures in my neighbourhood — where drivers tended to speed and roar their engines, despite the presence of children, old people, cats and dogs — include traffic circles and signs that say “DO NOT ENTER – EXCEPT BICYCLES”. But if we’re walking in LOVE — considering everyone else before ourselves — the rules would not be necessary. If we walk in love, we: wouldn’t fire up a cigarette without at least asking if others minded; would dispose of the butt properly (one of the rationales behind the increasingly stringent anti-smoking rules); would either tolerate someone else smoking or graciously ask if they wouldn’t; and wouldn’t drive too fast through neighbourhood streets. Oddly enough, it was the “traffic calming” rules — and seeing how flagrantly they were ignored and how little they were being enforced (since police have other things to do, like solve murders and bust drug dealers) — that made me truly understand what Paul wrote about being set free from the Law through Christ. The Law makes us focus on not doing the wrong thing. Christ focuses us on doing the right thing.