Reverence by Mia Lowry

It never ceases to amaze me how parent's nowadays say it is hard to keep children in line during church or any setting in which reverence is a requirement. My parent's had eight children and we all behaved in church. If not, we knew we were in for it. Either Mom would lean over and twist our arm skin to keep us in line. She'd do it and then whisper in your ear, "If you start crying, acting up or yell from the pinch I will do it again." So, you had to suck it up and take it. You knew it was your fault you got it because of your actions.



If that wasn't bad enough punishment to endure alone we had Dad to content with if we were ill behaved in church. He would stand up from the minister's platform walk over to the wooden divider and point at us while giving us the "You better watch it, kid" or "You are gonna get it, kid" look. If he stood we knew we were going to get a good ol' fashioned woopin' as soon as we got home.



All eight of us learned quickly how it payed off to just sit and endure the long sermon given to us by Pastor David Silva, all the songs by each group of the church (esp. the Dorcas marching all over the church while singing "Gloria, gloria, alleluia-I still can't stand that song. Sorry.), and the alter calls. For a kid of age 5 or 6 this was a lot of sitting still without any toys, books or any other thing to entertain us (distractors).



When Mom took us to visit her friends in their home we ALWAYS got the lecture---"You are to sit still. Don't move. Don't talk. If she asks you if you want water you say 'No, thank you' and I don't care if you think you are going to die from thirst. You're answer is still 'No, thank you'. Don't ask to use her bathroom. You better just hold it in until we are done with the visit. Do not touch anything she has in her house and don't ask her if you can play with any of the things she has in her house. If you misbehave in any way I WILL punish you when we get home."



This talk was modified for hospitals and stores. In stores we were told-"We are only here to buy what I have on this list. Do not ask for anything. You are not going to get it. Understand."



All of the above was a very effective method of learning reverence, obedience and self-control. All of these are important life lessons and I for one am thankful we did not get any distractors to teach us places of reverence were places of entertainment and that as Sergio use to sing the Stones song (which annoyed me) "You can't always get what you want".
See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxkdmL3iMCY