BEFORE THE 5TH COMMANDMENT THERE WAS THIS

CLEAN SLATE

Here's what God told Noah. "

 from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life.

6            If anyone sheds the blood of man, by man shall his             blood be shed; For in the image of God has man been made.

7   Be fertile, then, and multiply; abound on earth and subdue it."  (Genesis, 9)
I like gems like this.  Stuff that happened way before the ten commandments.  So much is said about the ten commandments that after a while the power seems to have leaked out of them.  It is probably because  they are thrown at the world without any "back story" support.

We learn in the early chapters of the Bible that murder is a crime that cries out to God for vengeance.  This even before the Law that was given to Moses.  Look at those two clean slates.  Adam ands Eve found a way to screw up even before these two tables were inscribed on Sinai.  I think about this often.  I think about how the life of humans regulates itself from within and, at the same time, has to be regulated from the outside.  Way before the Law was promulgated, Adam and Eve had the order to refrain from a certain act, to not eat of such and such plant.  They couldn't control themselves and they allowed themselves be scammed into doing something that they had been told not to do.  Going forward after that, humans knew that they had a side to them that could be deviated into wrong behavior.  Somehow, internal direction and focus needed to be supported by direction and focus from the outside.  So now we have it.  The interesting part of it all is that now that we have the Law, we have not only the evil itself that we complain about but the Law that is there to help us steer clear of the evil also. Now, what is all that about?  I think I have to go back to my first glimmer of thought, it is because we don't know the "back story."
Along the same line of thought, but coming forward to our day.  We have sometimes heard that the ten commandments are not all that important.  What the heck, didn't Saint Augustine say, "Love and do what you will."  Oh, yeah?  Ha!  Have you given that a try around your house these days?  I'll bet you two Jacksons and a Hamilton that you don't dare.  And, by the way, neither does the Voice from your Kitchen dare.  Yet, we love deeply, but we also know that even if we don't have the Law, we have RULES.  You bet we do.  They are so sacred that we don't even name them out loud.  We just follow them.  Domestic tranquility depends on it.  Mutual respect is encased in "them thar rules."  So, we live within the bounds of two railings, the inner virtue railing and the outer legal railing.  It doesn't matter how much we love.  It matters how much we learn to love our situation, the internal environment as well as the external reality of our nature.  The more we love the Law Maker and the Great Lover, the better is life and the less we have to rely on the external force that makes us do good.  The more we live within the bounds of the internal guide, the happier we are.  If we could free ourselves from the influence of the Law, we would then have attained perfection.  Well, that "ain't gonna happen.  Get used to it."  But since the voyage is where the fun is to be found, it is the struggle to free ourselves from the necessity of the external force so that we can declare ourselves 100% "innies", that straining and stretching for perfection will get us to the Eternal Kingdom of Happiness in the Face to Face glory of God Himself.  That happiness is what will enable us to stop crying at one another's funerals...especially mine.