Rule Breakers

Howdy, folks, how y’all doin’? Can you tell I’ve been on my first trip to the US of A since I was last here in December? Okay, so no one in New York City said ‘howdy’, but we returned jokily saying ‘happy holidays’ and ‘you got it’ to each other in bad American drawls because we heard those things everywhere we went. We speak the same language as our fellow humans across the pond, but our accents are distinct, and that’s a good thing. It reflects where we’re from and who we are. Years ago, I struck up a conversation with an American on a train. Before we got off, I asked where in the US she came from. Her reply surprised me. ‘I’m not from the States. I’m English, but my dream is to live there one day. Fake it ‘til you make it. That’s my rule.’ We all live by different rules. 

Rules are everywhere. One way I make a living now is as a workplace mediator. A recurring theme between warring parties is an underlying expectation that the other should follow their rules. I once took up a new management position and on day one I went to the kitchen, took a mug from the eclectic mix in the communal cupboard and made myself a coffee. Not long into the first team meeting, palpable tension from one participant disrupted my flow. I paused the agenda to enquire if there was a problem. Are you ahead of me? I was using their mug. They insisted it was okay but also took the chance to educate me about the ‘bring your own mug’ office rule. Great start.

Now, workplaces are one thing, but churches can be even stranger venues for the uninitiated. Even though I’m familiar with the goings on in these weird places, I’ve embarrassed myself more than once when visiting a new one. I’ve stood when I should have sat, spoken loudly when silence was required, unholy laser beams of disapproval, real or imagined, burning into me. Resilience can be required to return! To be honest, I’m not surprised it’s so hard to get new folk to join churches. Learning all the unwritten rules is tough.

Now, I’m not anti-rules, far from it. You don’t survive thirty years in policing without a penchant for rules and regulations. Unless you thrive in chaos, the creation of rules is a naturally occurring phenomenon, even for the most liberal among us. I once had occasion to go into an anarchist squat and even there the ‘house rules’ were stuck to a kitchen cupboard door. Surely, the definition of irony. Rules create order, keep us safe and establish a collective sense of how to behave. Imagine driving to town one day after your council has scrapped all the parking rules. Abandoned cars litter the streets and gridlock has taken over. You are stuck. Come back evil parking wardens, all is forgiven! There is a balance to be struck, but unnecessary rules can stifle our creativity or exclude people who aren’t just like us from joining in.

Like all communities, the writing world has rules, lots of them, and experts will happily impart them to you. Write like this, not like that. Show don’t tell. No one will take you seriously unless you do this. Start writing at dawn, write every day of the year, do this course, do another course, always plan, never plan, get rid of that passive voice, and on it goes. Realising there are loads of rules can be very disheartening for a novice. I’m learning about writing, which means I’m studying the rules, they exist for a reason, but I enjoyed my writing and wrote more before I became distracted and discouraged by them. When we legalistically follow all the rules in our writing rather than using them as guidance, we risk losing our unique, authentic, God-given voice. Like the woman on the train, we may write but in a dodgy fake accent.

When I was away, I saw the sign above in a park near Brooklyn Bridge decreeing that ‘dogs and furniture are not allowed on this lawn’. Imagine my surprise when I walked through and saw this adorable but rebellious hound living his best life. In his defence, he probably can’t read as there’s no book on the table, but I could sense his disdain for regulation. I’m one of life’s dedicated rule keepers, but sometimes when I’m writing I just want to be that carefree dog lying on a sun lounger, sipping a cool iced drink, unaware that rules even exist. I wonder what he’s dreaming about.

Romans Ch.7 v.6: But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code.