O is for "On the other hand"

On the other hand, in the Crossings' way of seeing through (diagnosis) life, the above way of using repentance stays at the first level, The External Problem. The External Problem is that the kids broke the window, the diagnosis says the kids must repent of breaking the window. But that diagnosis never gets to the deeper problem of the kids being un-listening [sic!] and disobedient, that is, that they did not trust or love the person who told them to play ball in the park and not in the street. Instead of listening and obeying the person who told them to play in the park, they disregarded that person's offer of a better place to play, a place where windows would not get broken. The kids trusted and loved their own desires more than they loved the person who gave them the chance to play in the park. This lack of love and trust is the second level of the Crossings' diagnosis, The Internal Problem, the problem of not having faith in God and having faith in something besides God.

The third level of the Crossings' diagnosis is to see that the real and deepest worry of the kids, the worry that made them run away when they broke the window, is the just or righteous anger of the owner of the house, the one who told them to play in the park. They are afraid of the owner of the house, fearing that the owner will come out angry, mad, and upset at them and threatening to punish them. They are afraid of that reaction because they know deep down they have it coming. They have broken not just the window--but the owner's window!--and that sours the relationship.

Tim Hoyer

Sin doesn't mean that we now have no relationship with God, even though that may seem like the best option available to sinners: witness how the kids, like their first parents, Adam and Eve, try to find refuge through "hiding" from the owner/God. To be sure, this hiding is done out of "fear of God," but not a true fear that is anything like repentance. It is a servile fear that totally underestimates God because it is a fear that thinks it can save its own neck by hiding. How foolish. No amount of hiding can save us from God. On the contrary, God may well use our hiding as God's very own retribution against us. Not only does hiding deplete us of the joy of really living now --freely, in the open--but God may very well elect to let us die in hiding. Sad thing is we don't even know that that is what is happening to us.

All this is evident in the post-window- breaking behavior of the kids. The kids who ran away because they broke the window now play under the back porches and walk down the alley instead of on the sidewalk in front of the house with the broken window. They play elsewhere now and try to appear as good kids, nice kids, polite kids, kids who could not have broken a window. Other kids who did not play ball and did not break the window know who broke the window and refuse to associate with them and deny them any pretense of being good, nice, polite kids. The other kids know that the kids who broke the window will never be welcome by the person who owns the house whose window they broke.