The Desk

By the time I got to high school I had heard it at least a thousand times.  It was not written in the rule section of the student handbook.  It was one of those universal unwritten rules proclaimed only in a moment of infraction.  "Do not sit on the desk top," was the unwritten rule ignored by most students.  None of us could ever remember seeing one broke because someone chose to sit on top of the desk instead of the seat.  It was for all  practical purposes a rule ignored.     

I remember a morning when I was sitting on the top of the desk.  The bell was ringing, Mrs. Evans entered the room from the hall, our eyes met, and there was a loud crack and the desk broke sending me to the floor in a loud heap.  It was also the morning I made an unplanned trip to the principal's office where I learned that I would be expected to pay for the desk.  The good news of the morning was that I had put back enough money from odd jobs to pay for the desk which meant my parents would not have to know about their son getting in trouble at school.   

What I did not know when I arrived home after the sound of the last bell was that my mother had already heard about her son.  In small towns back then news traveled faster than the internet which had not yet come.  She knew.  She asked benign questions like, "Anything happen at school today?"  And while I did not lie, I did not tell all the truth.  After a week or so of dancing around the truth she let me know that she knew and that I was grounded, not for breaking the desk, but for lying.  My punishment might have been delayed, but it came with the certainty of the sunrise.  "There will be anguish and distress  for everyone who does evil....glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good.  For God shows no partiality."  (Romans 2:9:11)