You Gotta Have Rules

By Bobby Neal Winters

We like rules.  Regardless of what we may say otherwise, we like rules.  Some people like to follow them; some people like to beat other people over the head with them.  

Some people like to break them; they go to the boundary and they put their toe to it.

But that’s just it: Rules provide boundaries. They provide a lattice for growth.  They give us something to argue about, and you can’t overstate the importance of that. Sometimes the arguing over the rule, the discussion of the purpose of the rule is more important than the rule itself.

Rules in whatever form for a reason, and knowing that reason can be a guiding light.

I’ve been working in the Office of the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Pittsburg State University for the last 18 years. There will be students starting at Pittsburg State this fall who were just a gleam in their papa’s eye when I began that job. As I’ve thrown out my files--carefully shredding all the sensitive stuff--I’ve thought about the nature of the job I’ve been transiting out of.

One of my duties has been handling substitutions for general education.  It is something I never thought about much before taking the position.  It occurs to me that very few of you are aware of this aspect of education.  Please allow me to enlighten you.

Consider the following case study. Johnny has been following his dream of going to rodeo clown school down at Hay University in Bugtussle, Oklahoma. He fell in love with a girl who was pre-med at Pittsburg State which she chose because of our great record of preparing students for medical school.  Not wanting to be separated from his love, he put aside his dream and decided to follow her to Pittsburg State.

While he’d been at Hay U, he had taken a course in Advanced Fertilizer Management, where it was a part of their general education package.  He took it in good faith for that purpose, and in spite of its odd title, it is quite a rigorous course.  It is taught in the Life Sciences Department and connects with many environmental issues in a very robust way and is quite demanding.  When he transfers in: Does this course count for general education credit, and if so, in what category?

Of course, the specifics are all made up and are purposefully ridiculous--other than the great pre-med program--but I hope you get the idea. We have rules in place. Well-written, precise rules. But as hard as you work, as smart as you may be, situations will arise that cannot be foreseen. 

Now, as you might imagine, from time to time patterns emerge even from such random occurrences as this, and as the process of individually approving/denying substitutions is cumbersome, rules are made to aid in smoothing out that part of the process.  This is done with the full knowledge of everyone involved that you can’t think of everything, and someone will have to look at individual cases and approve or deny substitutions. We like to call it job security.

But you gotta have rules, right?

This last spring I led a Bible Study over the Book of Genesis at my church. I noticed a pattern that occurs not only in Genesis, but throughout the rest of the Bible and, indeed, from there into history. It starts in Eden when God gives the one rule about not eating from the Tree of Knowledge. It continues after the Flood when God gives some more rules out. 

The rules are about more than what you can eat and what you can do. There is a point when Jacob comes to a parting of the ways with his father-in-law Laban.  They make a big pile of rocks and make the rule that one will stay on one side of the pile and the other will stay on the other side, but Laban’s daughters--Jacob’s wives--can pass back and forth. It’s a rule about a peaceful parting of the ways.

These examples are the ones in Genesis. In Exodus, we see rule-making go big time when Moses passes along God’s rules while they are wandering in Sinai.

In the New Testament, there are new rules given out at the Council at Jerusalem in the Book of Acts.  There was discussion and a decision. This process continued through the history of the Church through a number of important church councils. By studying the process, we know not only what we believe, but why.

Rules such as these are often broken; they are sometimes set-aside; but they provide a framework on which the organization can organically grow. They are like a trellis for a rose bush.

They give it a shape.

One last thing about rules: They provide targets.

If God hadn’t told Adam and Eve not to eat the Fruit, they might never have eaten it.  If you don’t see that the speed limit is 80, you might drive 70 to be on the safe side instead of kicking it up to 85 because you want to go just a little faster.

But you gotta have rules.

Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.