Browsing tag: punishment

  • Comfort The Wayward

    The abbot must exercise the utmost care and concern for wayward brothers . . . .  Therefore, he ought to use every skill of a wise physician and send in . . . mature and wise brothers who . . . may support the wavering brother, urge him to be humble as a way of making satisfaction, and console him lest he be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. Rather, as the Apostle also says: Let love for him be reaffirmed [2 Corinthians 2:7-8], and let all pray for him. (Rule of St. Benedict 27)

    Human beings are not born hard-hearted. They become hard-hearted when parents teach them a sense of impunity. We have to correct our children so that they will learn to distinguish right from wrong. When the child seems ungovernable, the parents need to pray for wisdom.

    But parents should not leave a child to figure out the next step alone. A parent should take care to intervene and to discuss the situation. You have to explain the punishment and point the way forward. A contrary child needs to hear explicitly what behavior the parent wants to see.

    If an older sibling steps up to take on the job of remonstrating with and comforting the wayward child, the parents should let the brother or sister handle the situation. Children can sometimes come up with wacky but effective solutions to domestic problems. Adolescents can at times be more insightful about the dynamics of a conflict than their parents are. It’s a good exercise for an older child to attempt to mediate. It also benefits the younger one to interact with a sibling who is taking on the role of intercessor and adviser.

    Ultimate responsibility of course rests with the parents. We must take care that no bitterness takes root to estrange siblings from each other or to alienate a child from father or mother.

     

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  • Fear Of The Lord

    The first step of humility, then, is that a man keeps the fear of God always before his eyes and never forgets it. Psalm 36:1  (Rule of St. Benedict 7.10)

    The practice of humility isn’t so daunting once you realize that it’s not about what other people think of you.  It’s about your existence.

    The first step in this practice is elemental.  Over and over in Scripture, the fear of God is recommended to us as beneficial to our well-being:

    Happy is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways.

    You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.

    Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table.

    Thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.  Psalm 128:1-4

    Immediately it becomes clear that if your idea of happiness is winning the jackpot in Vegas, you’ve got the wrong God here.  The God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the psalmists and prophets, St. Benedict and all the saints of the Church will bless you with a domestic life and a living wage.  God’s idea of happiness for his favorite creatures is not idleness, but satisfying work; not luxury, but abundance; not sexual adventures, but family.

    That’s the carrot.  But in case the carrot doesn’t motivate you, there’s also a stick.  When St. Benedict echoes the psalmist in proclaiming the fear of the Lord, he’s not talking about an intellectual assent to a coherent philosophical proposition.  He stands with all the other prophets in proclaiming that God is a Person.  And this Person holds each human being accountable for every free action.  God will punish those who willfully disobey his commands.  God will reward those who attempt to obey him.  Both the punishment and the reward will endure forever, once we’ve completed our journey through time.  So it is scary.  You’re supposed to feel a thrill of terror.

    But as always in this religion, there’s a paradox.  For those who don’t deserve much of anything, there is infinite mercy, if you’re humble enough to accept mercy.

    The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life Proverbs 14:27 

    The metaphor evokes fresh water in the desert.  On barren cliffs green things flourish.  How can this be?  A seed drifting on the wind lodged in a crack and sensed that it was time to send forth a tiny root.  Just so, the fear of the Lord is the mysterious spiritual sense that God endows his creatures with, enabling them to recognize his presence and to turn to him as the source of their vitality.

    Does it have to be fear?  Fear isn’t nice.  We’ve edited it out of religion.  But then again, we’ll pay money to feel it in a horror flick or on a roller coaster.  If it’s so bad, why do nice people seek it out and pay for it?

    Because we are alive.  Only living creatures can feel fear.  When we feel fear, we also feel alive, because we’re viscerally aware of a threat to our existence.

    The barren rock that never lived cannot fear losing the life it never had.  And people who’ve never felt alive can’t fear the loss of what they’ve never known.  They become indifferent to annihilation, their own and other people’s.  In interactions with others, these petrified souls exhibit a delusion of impunity.  Their moral indifference extends from their spiritual aridity. They’re untouchable, or so they imagine.  This is not a sign of progress or of superiority.  It’s a sign of something missing.

    The fear of God is the first step of humility, because humility is the root that aligns us in the proper posture with respect to our creator, so that we’re able to draw life from him.  We recognize our dependence on the one who called us into being.  We acknowledge the presence of the one who sustains everything at every moment.  And we send out at first just a tiny filament towards him, but as we grow and thrive, this will become a tough root mass that attaches us firmly to the region of our life source.

    What about the trouble that comes to everyone?  The trouble you face in this world is not the punishment of God.  The trouble you face now is what you have to get through on the way to your reward.  Now is the struggle of life in the desert.  Later is the rest at the oasis.

    St. Paul tells us that even if everything in the universe conspires against us–death, life, angels, demons, the present, the future, nature, culture, hurricanes, floods–God is still on our side, through it all, as long as we’re trying to do the right thing (Romans 8: 1-39).  Our struggle toward goodness through harsh surroundings shows that we are vital after all.

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  • Punish For Posterity

    He should not gloss over the sins of those who err, but cut them out while he can, as soon as they begin to sprout, remembering the fate of Eli, priest of Shiloh 1 Samuel 2:11-4:18….  Strike your son with a rod and you will free his soul from death Proverbs 23:14. (Rule of St. Benedict 2.26-29)

    Punishment is not retribution.  The purpose of punishment is to bar the way to a wrong path and to redirect the child toward the right way.  Punishment is no one’s favorite thing, but it’s an aspect of discipline that sometimes becomes necessary.

    Corporal punishment generally is called for when it’s the only way to teach the lesson.  It is fair to spank the child who throws a fit and kicks her mother.  “That hurts!” she cries.  Yes, and that’s the whole point of why you’re not allowed to kick and hit.

    There is an age that feels like an eon: between the time when a child starts to walk, and the time he learns how to talk.  During this phase, the child may be a mortal danger to himself, but he can’t understand anything you say.  This crazy person responds only to emotion and physical stimulus.  Yet each day he acquires a new skill–you never know which one next.

    Don’t spank with anything but the flat of your hand.  You will feel the sting too, and this will deter you from smacking too hard or too long.  No smack should produce any physical result more severe than transitory pink flush on the skin.  Aim to be habitually gentle and calm, so you’ll make an impression on your child when it really counts. The time to get angry and spank him is when he runs into the street and tries to throw himself in front of a truck. Next time when you call his name in that tone of voice, he’ll look back.

    Sometimes it’s satisfying to all concerned to spank the table or the chair, or whatever inanimate object can take the blame for an unfortunate event.  Children haven’t yet lost their sense of humor.

    Transgression of a law of God requires a serious response.  If the child is old enough to know she should not steal, she must return the stolen object to the owner and also apologize for taking it.  She needs to learn that stealing is not just about the object.  It’s an offense against a human being.

    If she learns not to steal from stores but still pilfers around the house, enforce boundaries.  If she tends to take your jewelry, lock up your jewelry.  Even adults have a hard time distinguishing between accessibility and permissibility.  Make the forbidden thing harder to get, so there’s a clear distinction between what she can use and what not to touch.

    If she goes to her grandmother’s house and steals the new purse that she knew was meant to be her sister’s birthday present, and then lies about it, you’ve got to take forceful action to break a habit that she’s now justifying to herself.

    Punishment to be effective must be aversive.  If it works for other people, but your child is clearly indifferent to it, then you’re going to have to think of something else.  This is especially true if you’re trying to break a bad habit, and your child seems to be factoring in your usual punishment as the price of doing business.  You might consider old-fashioned slapping of the palms with a ruler.  But you must react.  Grind routine to a stop until you’ve dealt with the problem.

    And then you redirect her.  Define what she did wrong, but also detail what behavior you want to see instead, and how she could have behaved differently in the situation she faced.  Tell her that you don’t want her to grow up to be a thief.  You do want her to grow up to be an honest person.

    You get angry because you care.  Parents who don’t care are already long gone.  But if you feel that you’re approaching a point where you can’t control your anger, give yourself a time out.  Walk away, lock the door behind you, and pray.  It’s the responsibility of parents to develop a Christian character, and gentleness is intrinsic to that character.  We practice thanking God for the good things in our lives and allow the Holy Spirit to reassert joy in our hearts.  He wants us to become patient, gentle and self-controlled.  Then we’ll be fit to correct our children when they go wrong.

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