The Ruler That Doesn't Rule

Proverbs 11:1 — "A false balance is abomination to the Lord: but a just weight is his delight." 

This morning I reached for the little blue plastic six-inch ruler I use to underline in my devotional books. This time I wasn't wanting to underline but to measure something. It was then that I realized that almost every single mark on this ruler had been worn off over my years of making straight lines. The only objective things left that make this still a ruler and not a bookmark are the edges that are still straight and the length that is still six inches. But it hit me that this little ruler still measures, after all--and something a lot bigger than six inches. It marks the current state of our culture in which we have rubbed all the absolutes off and created a "rule of law" of our own. The problem is that this is neither law nor rule. It is anarchy--the ruler that doesn't rule.

~

Who decides the terms of measurement anyway? I remember back years ago when we were threatened with conversion to the metric system. This seemed like a measure in purposeful torture. Nobody went around speaking in centimeters. It was neither practical nor poetic. But then something happened--and nothing happened. As far as I know, an inch is still an inch. A foot is still a foot. A mile is still a mile. But wouldn't you know, the only mark still visible at the very end of my ruler is the line measuring a centimeter. Such is the ironic fate of my well-used ruler.

And for those of us who are old enough to have formed a good eye for the Standard system, we don't need a measuring stick. But the same could be said for those of us who still remember that some rules were never meant to be broken. When I was growing up, no one ever even dreamed of redefining marriage or gender, much less sin or salvation. But then again, this sort of juggling must be nothing new or Solomon wouldn't have written this proverb in various ways on multiple occasions. God Himself made the usage of changing measurements against the law, knowing that a heavy thumb would weigh more on some goods than others and pocket the profit.

We often complain of a double standard, but the truth is that today there seems to be no standard. Severe punishments fly out the window with the right lawyer; pleas of insanity justify multiple murders. We have made so many exceptions to avoid insulting people's feelings and to understand their failings that the criminal has become the measure of society after rubbing out the honest person who still holds the line.

~

When my father passed away, I lovingly rummaged through his desk supplies and found some intriguing oddities and some antique necessities. I didn't need an adding machine or a Rolodex, but the wooden eighteen-inch ruler was definitely a keeper. Almost a quarter of an inch thick with a built-in metal edge, this ruler measures purely in inches. There are no millimeter or centimeter markings and no frills like holes spaced for a notebook. Just the rule approximating the biblical cubit--that ever-ready measurement from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. How simple must those days have been. But aren't some people's arms longer than others?

When I was also going through my father's toolchest, I found my grandfather's foldout ruler. Just opening and closing that antique yardstick is a tactile exercise in logic. How precise his measurements must have been when he made my father's mission-style glass door bookcases and his matching golden oak desk. I must have inherited some of his precision. As silly as this sounds, when I am cleaning and moving furniture back in place, it has to be straight with a boundary. I measure the distance equally by making a frozen ruler of my thumb and forefinger. I hold them as stiff as possible when straightening one end of a bookcase with the other, always wondering if I have shifted a smidge in my movement.

~

It must be that the eye made the ruler, not the ruler the eye. Jesus said, "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." But today our eye is evil. Just imagine if we did to our construction what we do to our laws--always changing things to make them fit our whims rather than cutting things to meet a universal standard. What a crooked house we would build, and what a crooked mile we would walk to get there. Crook. Crooked. Short shrift. Guesswork is all that's left when we have rubbed off all the boundaries and burned our fate right into our souls.