When I was in middle school we had a school class fundraiser, selling these candies called “Katydids”. They were chocolate covered caramel, nut goodies. They came in a box of about one dozen. We received a huge shipment of these Katydids, which came in several large cartons. Those cartons were stored in our supply closet. My classmate and I made a “secret” fort in the back of this closet by piling up boxes in front of the very back corner of the closet. Somehow, I forget how we pulled it off, but somehow, we managed to sneak back there and “hide,” from time to time. Some of the boxes that we used to fashion this secret area were the boxes that contained the extra Katydids. The way the Katydids selling system worked was that we would each get a few boxes to sell and then, after we sold those, we would turn in the money and get a few more boxes to sell. One day I went back to the secret spot and I found two of my classmates in there. They were eating Katydids! I asked them if they had bought them. “No.” I asked if they were out of their personal inventory that they were trying to sell and were planning to turn in the money later on. “No.” Where had they come from? That’s right; they had opened the boxes in the store room and were eating them. I asked how many they had eaten and they said that they had only taken a couple each out of one box. I was personally horrified by this action and left. The next day, the same thing happened with the same two guys. The day after that there were two more people in there and they were all eating the Katydids! I stopped going in there after that.
One day, maybe two weeks later, the inevitable happened. The teacher went back to get some more Katydids to dote out for additional sales. What she found was a large carton with a whole lot of small, empty candy boxes and wrappers. Nearly one full carton of Katydids had been pilfered and consumed by my classmates. The teacher was livid. Who could have done such a thing? No one knew, of course. Perhaps mice or an Alien encounter were to blame. But in the end the truth came out and the blame got placed on the guilty parties. Those who had played a lesser role were scolded and received little else as a consequence. The two original offenders bore the brunt of the guilt and were forced to repay the damages over a period of time. The teacher was curious about how so many could have become convinced that this behavior was acceptable? The answer was that one by one people were being drawn into it by the original culprits who had been doing it for so long without consequences. Somehow it became okay, like it would magically never be discovered. One person did it and then the next and the next and so on. If not for the teacher’s discovery, perhaps every child would have become involved.
It’s funny how human nature works. An unacceptable behavior can become an acceptable behavior if enough people come to agree with it and begin to practice it. Before too long that previously unacceptable behavior becomes not only acceptable, but a normal. The children of the people who practice that behavior may never even be taught that the behavior is unacceptable. They will grow up seeing it practiced by their role models. That behavior has now crept across the line from unacceptable to acceptable, in only one generation. How many generations will it take for it to make its way back across the line? What if those behaviors are our Christian principles? Little eyes are always observing us. We are called to live our faith, not merely believe in it. Blessings!

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