The List of Rules

Once upon a time, a very wise and loving father looked upon how his children were behaving, and saw that something must be done to teach them the right way to live. They were unruly and selfish, constantly arguing with each other, filled with greed and violence. This was not how their father wanted them to live.

He called them together to discuss the matter. He asked why it was they behaved in a way that was contrary to not just what their father had taught them, but to common sense as well. He asked what must he do, as their father, to make sure they behaved as they should.

They replied that they were no longer children, that they could make up their own minds about how to behave, as long as their father made it clear what was expected of them.

“Show us what you consider the difference between good and evil. Make up a list of rules, and we will follow them, to the very best of our ability.”

Their father looked at them, a subtle smile playing on his lips. They asked for the very thing he had been planning on doing. Everything was going according to his plan. The father spoke, “Very well. I have just such a list right here. I will give it to you, along with promises to reward you greatly for abiding by the list. Be aware, though, that there is also punishment and dire consequences for breaking the rules. If this is truly what you want, do you swear you will abide by the list?”

He handed out the list, and the children gathered to look at it. There was some grumbling about a few of the rules, yet when they looked at the list of rewards, and how so many of the rules looked so easy to follow, they eventually nodded their heads in agreement.

“We will follow these rules. We expect the just rewards for doing so...”

“And the just punishment for failure?” their father interrupted them?

“Yes, of course. But we shall not fail. We are quite able to keep these rules,” replied the eldest of the children, a hint of indignation in his voice.

The father gazed at them sternly, yet lovingly as well,”Very well then. From this day forward that list will govern nearly everything in your lives. You will start following it immediately."

He watched as his children hurriedly began discussing how to comply with the list of rules, and took the first steps toward what they thought would be a life of reward for their discipline and work.

It soon became apparent that some of the rules were harder to keep than they thought. How could they not work on a certain day, yet still do the things needed to go about their lives? It turned out that wasn't too hard to resolve: they simply did extra work the other days to get ready for the day they couldn't work. However, many of the other rules meant giving up certain things they enjoyed, which was of course a difficult thing for some of them to do. They soon realized they didn't really miss those things that much-some of them were harmful habits anyway-but especially because their father was generous with his rewards when he saw them comply with the list.

What was not so easy was obeying rules when their basic human nature, their emotions and desires, ran counter to the rules. It was hard not to be jealous of a sibling who had more toys. If someone was mean to me, many of them thought, how can I be expected to treat him nice in return? Eventually they saw how hard it was to keep some of the rules, but rather than admit it, they pretended they were still keeping them. Sometimes, doing this meant they had to change the meaning of the rules to make it look like they were keeping them. In many cases, they resorted to bragging about the rules they did keep as though that made up for breaking other rules.

All the while, their father watched their behavior in near silence. Occasionally he would let them know he was not pleased with how they behaved. When this happened, some of his children would make an effort to correct their behavior out of genuine remorse. Others would pretend to be sorry, but keep on breaking the rules in secret. A few of the children simply said they were sick and tired of the rules and would do what they wanted.

After many years, it became obvious that the list of rules caused as many problems as it solved. This wasn't because of the rules, but because the children simply were not able to keep all of them as they had promised. As it is in life, words written on paper look much easier to follow than is the actual case. The rules can be objective, unchanging words on paper, but people are naturally subjective, and as changeable as the weather.

There were as many ways of dealing with the list as there were children. Some kept nearly all the rules faithfully. Some chose only those rules which were easy to keep. Some pretended to keep rules, but didn't. Some tried as best they could, and were very sorry when they broke a rule. Others simply said they would no longer follow the list.

Their father observed all of this in knowing silence. Even though some of his children thought they were fooling him (because they thought the were fooling their siblings), he knew what each of them was doing. Finally he called them together to discuss the list of rules.

“So, you have had this list for many years now,” said the father, “and I have been watching you carefully the whole time. Some of you do very well, considering the great number of rules on the list, and others of you shame yourselves with your selfishness and contentiousness.”

At this, the children became disquieted. They started grumbling among themselves about who their father meant was doing well and who was being selfish.

Their father continued,” and yet, no matter how well or badly any of you have done, not a single one of you has succeeded in following the list as you promised. As a result, none of you qualify for the ultimate reward.”

There was a moment of stunned silence as the children looked at each other in disbelief. Then all at once the cacophonous protest erupted. The children shouted at each other, at their father, at no one in particular. Finally two of the children stepped forward, convincing the others to let them speak.

The first child stepped forward and got right in his father's face, “This list is impossible to keep. We may just be your children, but we deserve better. We deserve something fair. You set us up, giving us this ridiculous list, promising a reward, and now saying we don't get it because we didn't keep all the rules?”

“How were we ever supposed to keep this list? We know you can keep it, of course. We may be your children, but we aren't you. It's unfair to expect us to keep this list as you would.”

“You claim you love us, but it's obvious to us that's not the case. You gave us this list, knowing that as we tried to follow the rules, some of us would act differently than others. Instead of the rules making our lives as a family easier, it resulted in so many arguments about the rules, how to keep them, who was or wasn't obeying, that we are worse off than before. But you knew that would happen! You knew it would happen but gave us the list anyway. How cruel! No real father would do such a thing. We demand you tear up the list, and give us our rewards anyway, because this whole thing was unfair.”

For a breathless moment, the outspoken child stood before his father, ragged breaths coming forth as he expected some sort of reaction: an angry retort, perhaps even a slap to the face. Instead the father gently leaned forward, laid his hands on his child's shoulders, and kissed him on the forehead.

The child, now torn between an even greater anger toward his father (for not acting as the child had expected) and bewilderment over his response, moved back toward the rest of the children in uncertain steps, his eyes never leaving his father's unfathomable gaze.

The second child spoke humbly, his eyes fixed on the floor.,”Father, some of us have tried our very best. We really have. We thought we could follow all the rules, but we found out we couldn't. We are too flawed, to apt to make mistakes despite our better judgment. Even the best of us can act in selfishness. That list is... impossible to keep, as my brother said. But the fault lies with us for not realizing this from the start, and spending all these years trying to keep it instead of asking you how we could deal with such an impossible list. Forgive us for being so arrogant.”

Finally he looked up into his father's eyes. He lunged forward onto his knees and grasped his father's hand in his own, “Please, father, please tear up the list. We aren't truly able to keep it correctly, because we don't know how... we aren't you. No matter how highly we think of ourselves, we don't really know your thoughts, your heart, your nature. We lack something inside of us... each of us is lacking... that's why we fail...”

The father gently pulled his child off his knees and wrapped him in a loving embrace, a smile on his face. He took a few moments to whisper something in the child's ear. The child perked up greatly at the words he was hearing, and soon a joyful grin replaced the tear streaked expression he had worn moments before.

The father stopped speaking to the child, who reluctantly released their embrace. With a nod, the father motioned for him to return to his siblings.

The father stood and held the list up before him. He loudly declared, “I will not tear up this list. It reflects the way things are meant to be, because it comes from my very heart. My own spirit is the spirit behind the list. I would sooner kill myself than dismiss these rules”

Again a mixed reaction from the children, ranging from anger and indignation to wonderment to bitter resignation of the inevitable failure the list imposed upon them.

The father lowered his voice to a whisper that cut through his children's muttering as clearly as if he had been speaking in a silent room, “I have a much better solution. I agree the list is impossible to keep fully. That was my intent from the beginning...”

More indignant muttering.

“That being the case, “the father continued, unfazed by the growing discontent among some of his children, “I offer the only solution what will work. I offer myself, my spirit.”

With that, the father took a deep breath, an impossibly long and enormous inhalation that seemed to draw all of time and space into himself, leaving nothing but a spot of light in which he stood before his family. He then exhaled, his breath like gentle fire washing out over his children like the tide flowing in to erase footprints in the sand and remove detritus. Some of the children closed their eyes and inhaled the breath of their father. Others obstinately shut their mouths and refused to breathe.

Yet none could deny that the fire had washed over them, and that as a result, the entire universe had changed.

The father looked out over his children, loving the most rebellious and selfish as much as he loved the most loving and faithful. “That is all I have to say for now.” With that, the father turned and posted the list of rules on the wall, where his children would always see it. The children looked at each other, with mutterings both benign and hateful, and eventually went their various ways. 

All but one.

The lone child meekly approached her father, who had sat back down in his chair and was idly humming to himself, eyes closed. “Father?” the child asked. The father opened his eyes and smiled.

“I knew you would be the one” he said happily, and held out his arms for his child to approach. He pulled her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her as she leaned her head on his shoulder. She listened to his humming for a few moments, and found it filled her with peace and joy. After a few blissful moments listening to her father's song, she spoke:

“This was the plan all along, wasn't it? I mean, from the moment you gave us life, you knew what we would be like. You knew that no matter what, if you didn't do something drastic, we would become nothing more than selfish, unmitigated brats. At least compared to you, that is. I mean, we can be really good when we want to, but it's not quite enough to be that sort of good, is it? That's because that sort of good is only on the outside, only temporary, and often only because it means we get a reward for being that sort of good.”

She paused for a moment, expecting her father to say something, but he simply continued to hum the quiet song, his head leaning against hers, his eyes closed.

“I guess what I'm saying is there are two sorts of good we can be. There's 'list of rules' good, where we can point to one or a bunch of the rules and say See, I'm being good because I keep these rules. But then we forget about the rules we don't keep, as though it doesn't matter when we are bad. And the fact is that for a lot of us, the most important rules are the ones we break, because they're the hardest for us to keep. Like loving our enemies or not fighting over stuff, or being more willing to give to someone than get something from them.”

“Then we make a big deal out of keeping the easy rules cuz we hope that will keep people from noticing that we're breaking the ones that matter the most. And that's why you said we had to keep all the rules to earn the reward, cuz if we could say that we kept some of the rules, but not all of them, and that we deserved the reward as a result, we would miss the whole point of what the reward is.”

At that the father stopped humming and opened his eyes to regard his child.

“Cuz, well, we spent all this time trying to keep the list of rules, thinking the reward would be some great thing each of us wanted, like a lot of money or a big house or to be better looking or to be in charge. But those sorts of things are only the rewards you get by breaking some of the rules. I mean, anyone can get that stuff on their own, really, often just by being selfish enough to make themselves more important than anyone else.”

The child looked up into her father's eyes.

“The list, the list is meant for us to realize that the only way we can really keep it is if we have you inside of us, if we share your spirit, like you gave us just now. That's how we keep the list: not by following each and every rule, but by letting your spirit guide us into becoming like you, and acting as you would act. That way we know more than just what's on the list. We know why there is a list to begin with. And when we know that, when we know that the list is really all about love, then we can keep the parts we are best able to keep, each of us, personally, and not fret over the parts we don't keep because we realize it's not our fault if we make mistakes for being imperfect. It's only our fault if we know we could do something but refuse to do it.”

“So the reward is not something we get from keeping the list. It is the list, or more so, it's your spirit inside of us, gently making it so we can let the you inside of us keep the parts of the list it's important for each of us to keep, ourselves, without fretting whether someone else is keeping the list the same way. The reward is knowing why, and knowing you, and moments just like this.” Then she closed her eyes and hugged her father ever so tightly.

The father smiled, closed his eyes, and resumed humming his sweet, soft song.