Christian School Teacher of the Year Arrested and FIRED after adult son posted video of her beating younger son

[NNadir]

12. I'm an atheist but...

...for familial reasons, that I described here when my oldest son was a toddler, I had him baptized in an Episcopalian (Christianity Light) church which involved attending services for a short time.

One of the sermons by a woman priest there has always stuck in my mind, in which she said that the "rod" in that famous quote should never have been interpreted as beat the hell out of a kid, but that actually the "rod" in sheep herding is a stick held out to gently guide the sheep in the desired direction.

This actually make sense. The alternate meaning, "bit the kid over the head with a stick" represents in my mind a case of eisegesis, thus giving me the second occasion to use the word in a sentence.

We never hit our kids - although my fundamentalist sister-in-law and mother-in-law did hit theirs and thought we should hit ours - and we're very proud of the fine young men they both turned out to be. My two nieces are doing OK, but the oldest has moved out of state, and doesn't plan on coming back. This reminds me of my wife, who when we married, wanted us to move as far away from her family as we could. (Later we made peace with them.)