Personal Responsibility

Last week Sean gave my oldest two sons a writing assignment: write down, neatly and without spelling errors, twenty things that you can do to demonstrate personal responsibility. They took the assignment with much enthusiasm.

What a great idea! I was impressed. What I hadn't expected was that our third son, Parker, would be just as excited about it.

"Can I do one, too?" he asked me. Well, I wasn't going to rain on his parade! I also didn't want to interfere with his creative ideas, or overwhelm him with too big of a project.

"Alright, Parker, why don't you write down ten things? You don't have to worry about spelling, just put the words down the way they sound to you."

So here it is.....Ten Things Parker Can Do to Demonstrate Personal Responsibility:

1 U shoold be vere nis to uthrs.
2 Oba yor muthr and Fothr.
3 Oba The bibol
4 God Es Vere nis to us.
5 U shoold be nis to the speret.
6 U shoold not stel Dimens or uthr thes.
7 Brush yor teth.
8 Mak yor BeD.
9 Get Drest.
10 Klen yor room.

Some may look at this list and cringe at the spelling abilities of my 7 year old. That's okay. I was impressed that he got sixteen words right and that he punctuated each sentence. More than that, I was impressed that the first 5 things dealt with relationships. That wasn't really what daddy was referring to when he gave the assignment. Parker always has, and always will be, my 'out of the box' kind of thinker and doer.

*********
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love, your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:28-31