Just one of the crowd

When I was a teenager, I remember one time Uncle Angel and Aunt China came to visit. Aunt China was talking to my mother and my grandmother about someone else’s kid hanging around a person she didn’t deem appropriate. “Show me who you’re with, I’ll show you who you are,” she said. I didn’t like it. Maybe because at that particular moment I was a teenager at home on a Friday night, hanging around with two old ladies, a woman who slept in hair curlers with cold cream on her face, and an old man with hair growing out of his protruding ears (believe me, I’m not throwing that stone). I should have been hanging out with my dad. He was upstairs watching television in his underwear.

For whatever reason, that statement bugged me more than kissing my aunt’s hairy cheek goodbye.

Do I hate this statement because it’s wrong or because I’m in denial about its truth?

Let’s assume it’s true. Since starting this blog, I’ve been poking around looking at other people’s pages. If this statement is true, I’m not as cool as I imagined. There are a lot of stange creatures in the Blogspot zoo I checked myself into. (No cracks) On that same note, do I judge my family by the people I see on their My Space pages? Twenty-five years ago we had the good sense(?) to commit our sins in the dark where they belonged. Today, kids take pictures while they’re in the middle of it and post it for everyone to see.

Now to be fair, this sword should cut both ways. My good friends, Slugger and Jack, own tool belts and can do things with them. Does hanging out with them mean I’m handy? (In reality, I can’t figure out how to work a Dyson and Slugger hung my Christmas lights last year while I held the ladder.) I think there lays the answer. Anyone who knows me knows that if I could do a repair I wouldn’t have had to sell my last house. Hanging around with sinners doesn’t make you one, just like hanging around Christians doesn’t make you one of them either. It does put you in a position where you can be influenced and overcome by your surroundings. (Good in one instance, bad in the other.) It can also get you on someone’s My Space page. It’s best to have your eyes open at all times except when they should be shut tight. (you know what I mean.) I’m reminded of a song sung by Amy Grant.

I looked into the mirror,

Proud as I could be,

And I saw my pointing finger

Pointing back at me,

Saying, "Who named you accuser?

Who gave you the scales?"

I hung my head in sorrow;

I could almost feel the nails.

I said, "This is how it is

To be crucified and judged

Without love."