Ed, my neighbor next door, is emotionally tough. He claims when he was a kid, he shed no tears when Bambi's mother was shot in the movie. When Ed played hockey, he was nickednamed "the cement wall" for giving and absorbing body checks, but he was never known for losing his cool and yelling personal comments at the referee. His buddies excluded him from their poker night because he could master the same look for a full house as a hand full of nothing. Ed says his feelings run so deep he has no need to cry like a baby or defend himself like a lawyer.
"Don't you ever have some troubling feelings of conscience or guilt?" I asked Ed.
"Give me an example," Ed replied.
"Well, when our first born son was about nine months old, I was carrying him. I tripped over a peg near the sidewalk and stumbled and dropped him on his head on the sidewalk. We rushed him to emergency and they did x-rays to see if the baby had a fractured skull. I sure felt guilty that I dropped him," I told Ed.
"I wouldn't have been able to sleep for a week if I did that," replied Ed.
"You've never done anything that has made you guilty or heart sick?" I countered.
"Not that I can think of," Ed said in a matter of fact manner. "I cannot believe you could have been that clumsy. Wonder they didn't take the child away from you," Ed continued.
"It is pretty clear to me that you sure know how to make a person feel guilty," I said to Ed.
"Don't get touchy," Ed said, "you are the one that dropped the kid, not me."
Trying another approach, I asked Ed if he had ever broken one of the "ten commandments" and if it had made him feel guilty. Ed informed me there were not "ten commandments," but only three that really mattered. Honour you parents. Don't murder. Don't steal. Ed went on to tell me that he did not feel guilty about forgetting the other seven, because about three is all a person is good for.
Sensing that I may as well forget about any discussion of guilt, I said, "Let's talk about something else," which lead Ed into a round of questions.
"Why aren't you getting your snow shovelled faster this fall? Why didn't you put up your Christmas lights during the good weather? Why didn't you tell me that coffee was free at McDonalds for two weeks?"
I ignored the first two questions and answered the last question with, "I knew you wouldn't drive to Yorkton to get a free coffee, because it would cost you gas to get there."
I asked Ed one question of my own. How did Jesus shorten the "ten commandments" into just two?
Ed answered, "I don't know. You tell me."
I told Ed, "Jesus said: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and the second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
Ed decided he likes his three better and we left it there.
