It’s simple: Make a promise and keep it. But life happens; vows are broken, truthfulness is blurred.

Some of us were raised in authoritarian households rife with laws. One false move and you’re in trouble! Others grew up in chaos without boundaries or safeguards. Neither environment is particularly happy, and I leave it to the survivors of each to compete for which was most personally destructive.

“Don’t suppose for a minute that I have come to demolish the scriptures—either God’s Law or the prophets. I’m not here to demolish but to complete. I am going to put it all together, pull it all together in a vast panorama. God’s Law is more real and lasting than the stars in the sky and the ground at your feet.

My father and brother are members of the Elks fraternal order. I like to teasingly bug them to show me the secret handshake, and they steadfastly refuse. I don’t know if the Elks even have a secret handshake—they certainly aren’t going to tell me—and if I really wanted to know, I could, of course, become an Elk myself.

Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins, and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.