“To sin, it is not necessary to break the rules,” the sage said. “just keep them to the letter.”
It is more than possible to make rules for our existence, the measure of our souls. But when rule-keeping takes precedence over the very essence of spirituality—justice, compassion, and union with God—rules become the very thing that can destroy the reason for our existence. (Author unknown)
I could easily have been a rule keeper. It fits with my old personality of perfectionism. I now know they are sign posts to you, sort of. An external point of view of an internal reality. The inside must come first, but too often we look and focus on the approach from the outside. I hope my morality and ethics come from wanting to be like you, near you, and not from any preconceived notions or imagined realities of what you want.
On occasion, I feel glad of the fact that I may be bending or breaking some rule for that I see as the right thing to do for someone else. Please Father, keep me doing what is right for your sake, for the other person’s sake, for right’s sake, and never for the pitiful gladness or pride of breaking a rule just to be breaking one.
Your being and existence is beyond rules. Our being and existence are within you, and in a sense, are beyond rules too, at least of rules for the sake of measuring our existence. Except for maybe one, the rule of love.
In the evening of our life, we shall be judged by love, namely, by the sincerity of our love for God, for our neighbor, for our soul. (St. John of the Cross)