Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2005 > November > 10
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Can just 2 tablets heal ailing society?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Her mom was a churchgoing lady.
When the doors of New Hope Freewill Baptist Church were open, she’d be there. With her children in tow.
Back then, a young Pat Stone sang in the choir and attended Sunday school. She liked the old-time gospel music and the social simplicity offered at the country church in Plant City, Fla.
RICK BADIE / Staff
Pat Stone doesn’t make it to church much, but she makes no bones about her feelings on the Ten Commandments.
“I always left that church with a good feeling,” she said. “You left with a lift in your walk.”
Today, Stone and her husband of 28 years live on Patterson Road, a road I’d never been on till Tuesday. I had a sudden urge to take an excursion. A blue-and-white placard shaped like a Bible and posted in the flower bed caught my eye. I pulled into the Stones’ driveway.
“1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother ?”
It was the King James version of the Ten Commandments. Right next to a Mickey Mouse figure.
I know what you’re probably thinking. Stone’s a Bible-thumper. A Christian zealot. She struck me as neither. She didn’t pepper me with questions about my church attendance or whether I was “right” with God. You know how Southern Baptists are wont to do. (I can say that because I was raised a Southern Baptist.)
Stone doesn’t even attend church that much. “I can have church right here in my home,” she told me.
But the Ten Commandments, now that’s another matter. They give Stone her moral fiber, a foundation to live by. It’s a fearful respect for her God, something she learned growing up.
“Look at where the world is now compared to where it was 30 years ago,” Stone said. “We took prayer out of school. Teachers don’t have no control, and the kids don’t care. We had the fear of God instilled in us, but a lot of the kids these days are not brought up with that. I am a firm believer that we should go back to it. We shouldn’t have these street gangs, and these kids in school shooting other kids. If we live by the Ten Commandments, I believe our world would be a better place. “
“6. Thou shalt not kill.
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery.
8. Thou shalt not steal.
9. Thou shall not bear false witness ?
10. Thou shall not covet ?”
Stone’s neighbors don’t take issue with her yard sign. Neither does her husband.
“He knows that’s what I believe,” she said. “One time the stem on the sign broke, and he fixed it for me.”
She found it interesting that curiosity led me to her doorstep. She had a good feeling about it.
“I hope people can look at it and think about what they are doing,” she said. “Maybe you were meant to see it so others will.”
Maybe so.
