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Crime Doesn't Pay
Crime! Whether we could ever cure it, stomp on it, burn it so that it didn’t exist any longer: how wonderful that could be for this huge world of 7,780,000 billion people who are tempted by it every day since beginning of mankind as we know it.
 We point first to Adam and Eve in the garden (if you take life as having been born there) who right off committed a crime. They did what they were told not to do, with a punishment threatened. They took “the else” because the doing of it, satiated the curiosity of what and why they were told not to do something. The woman, who gets the blame, couldn’t resist not knowing, or owning knowledge. She needed to sample what the apple/apricot or whatever the fruit was not to be tasted, even though there were probably available all sorts of beautiful strawberries, oranges, pears, bananas, kiwis, watermelon maybe even blueberries. I surmise every kind of fruit was in the Holy Garden. And, seemingly she was the boss, encouraging and insisting that her male partner take a bite too, which he did, not letting her get the best of him, or just plain because he wanted to be as knowledgeable as she was. So, they did it. They bit into the fruit God had ordered them not to eat, all the while God, in the moment of temptation, knew that neither male nor female had the trust or strength to overcome their curiosity. Listening close by was the serpent, which at that time has been depicted as actually standing upright almost like a giraffe. He was the spit of evil in the event. The encourager. The envious one who wanted to see what happened, or maybe knew what was going to happen and wanted to see how God handled it. There is always a third party that encourages or discourages or insists or says, “hold on, don’t do that.”
These three folks - the doer, the companion and the encourager were the founders of CRIME right at the beginning of all things human, according to the Bible. Woman gets the blame. And in so many situations in the modern world, the mother gets the blame, the very one who gave birth (9 months of life that can be fun, fat or fearful) to a child that in so many situations become a delinquent or a hooligan, a scoundrel or a gang killer.
As I pondered this catastrophe of sin last night, I thought about those pre-humans, those hairy monsters that no longer roamed bent over, whose main purpose in life, like so many animals, was finding food and fighting for survival. We see that in elephants, in wild horses, in dogs and polar bears. They all, in the primitive, in the world in which they survived if there were no humans trying to save them, the instinct was to fight to the kill for food and territory. It seemed to me God was experimenting with types of humans that came from low to the ground, to bent over, always muscular, very hairy, and large feet, and eventually that beast stood up tall, and maybe that was when God said Eureka! Now life can begin as it should be. He had man and woman in hand the way he wanted them. And God tested them out in a paradise that He had created which had only one temptation. That darn apple or apricot or whatever the delicious fruit was.
When God set the original pair into his paradise, I wonder if He held his breath to see what was in their then innocent hearts. Sadly, this was where a sort of curiosity began, where disobedience and seduction and thinking something was better than another was created. Here violence became a weapon, a method, and the survivor earned more and more power as weak species were wiped out. So, Step Two in the stories in the Bible, the result of Step One which was the defiance of God, was the beginning of crime, when it birthed and got serious and raised its horrible head out of greed and jealousy. So, one wonders why humans are in such rough and tough situations today. Murderers. Deceivers. Robbers, Prisoners, even prison guards who must be stronger than the world’s strongest man today, like Schwarzenegger or Tom Stoltman (who eats 10 eggs a day for breakfast). All are probably more in number than just nice, kind, helpful, giving and creating charity folk who want a safer and better world.
When “faith” and “belief” and more important, “life” began as we know it today, it seemed that rough road to know crime and deceit had been a possibility in every birth. It is up to the parent to divert their children from such worlds, unless it seemed like it could benefit parents who long for power, financial superiority, and a violent life to protect his own. Like those in the Cartels, the Mafia, the Gambinos or Lucheses, the Mexican Sinaloa Cartel, Escobar and even a woman Grisela Blanco of Columbia - almost all family gangs. The passion was/is to dominate overall and kill whoever is in the way, often without looking. So many of these monster people, kill a few dozen then go to church and ask for blessings and forgiveness, I guess. Most, being Italian or Latin, are Catholics. Most believe in God, or at least think they are a god of sorts doing what they must do for power and control.
So, in the Bible history, Step Two, the children of Adam and Eve, the finalist of God’s creation, a brother kills a brother out of envy, jealousy, greed and wanting to get all the loot and honor. Same parents, different attitude that had rolled away because of envy, and God presented Cain and Abel. When the world supposedly started with these actions, there was not much hope for peace anywhere for any length of time. The Old Testament is filled with crime, including the precocious David who became God’s King most beloved. David got away with killing the husband of Bathsheba who he wanted for himself. Lord God allowed that, as evil as it was. Bathsheba’s spouse was a good, loyal, devoted soldier who was sent to the front line to be killed, or assassinated.
I don’t think there has been much change since. The Tower of Babel was another example of sin above faith and honor. Yet there were great saviors and prophets like Abraham, Daniel, Job, Noah and Moses, all who tried to please God and to be examples of who should inhabit this earth. But they were a few. And so few, that, decades later, the Son of God was born into poverty to a humble but weird situation (a virgin who berthed a baby without getting pregnant the normal way) and this special child walked in dusty sandals across the lands which are Israel today and preached and taught and loved and healed and tried to give hope or believe in the beauty of God Almighty before they hung Him on a cross. No respected man would have ever been permitted such a death. But because of Jesus, the Son of God, you and I have a chance at salvation and paradise and to reunite with family and friends in a forever life wherever that might be.
This is the last Sunday of the church’s calendar year. Next week begins the beginning of The Holy year again, as we meet and greet the stories we know so well, the anticipation, the miracles, the happenings, the joys and the sadnesses that we live by in our hearts and souls as we try to do something decent and good in this crowded, confused, selfish and crime-laden earth. May God support us in any effort to save our youngsters, no matter what color or faith or situation they are in. Somehow, someday, crime needs to be wiped out. Do we have to wait until we leave earth and arrive in the Lap of God? Let’s try to make a difference now while we are on this earth before wherever God sends us when we are done.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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