-Perpetual Infection of Siblings Syndrome-

My one year old son, Ian, has been sick this week.  It's the first time he has really thrown up so he has no clue what's going on.  The odd thing is that he doesn't have a fever and he's acting totally normal except for the whole horking up chinks of food thing.  Then there's the joy of the obligatory parental clean of the chunks.  Yeah, not exciting stuff.  But if you have multiple kids, you know what I mean when I say there is an even greater concern when one gets sick.  It's called PISS, Perpetual Infection of Siblings Syndrome.  It's a real disease with doctors and drugs and everything.

OK so maybe it's not but it does actually happen so we will treat it like it is.  The general rule of PISS is that one sibling will pass it on to another and they will continue to pass it back and forth for what seems like forever.  The more kids you have, the longer PISS generally lasts.  there is also no real form of prevention.  It's like swimming in a public pool...there's just no way to keep the PISS off of you.  Often times PISS is followed by Chronic Release to Adult Parents or CRAP for short.  If this happens, there is an 87% chance that at least one person in your home will be sick for 10.7 consecutive months.  And don't even get me started on what happens if you have pets.

Krissy and I are currently trying to minimize the effect of PISS and CRAP in out home and scientists are hard at work trying to find a prevention measure.  But until that glorious day finally arrives the rule is simple:  When one of us is sick, we're all sick.  I think this is how it's supposed to be though.

We have a bad habit, as Christians, of alienating other Christians when they have made mistakes and allowed temptation to get the best of them.  People who were once considered close friends are all of the sudden ostracized because they slept with their boyfriend, got caught looking at internet porn, are struggling with alcoholism, or voted for a democrat.  Why do we do this?  Why is it that when these people need the love and support of Christ the most, His representatives, Christians, shun them like they're the Antichrist?  Even an elementary reading of the Gospels would conclude that this is not how Jesus acted or intended us to act.

Christians, every one of us together, are described in the New Testament as "the Body of Christ."  In alienating and ostracizing other Christians we are effectively amputating a part of the body that isn't even infected yet; just wounded.  If I get pneumonia I don't rip my lungs out of my chest because they're making me feel bad.  I devote my energy into helping them heal so that my whole body can function properly once again.  I think this is what Jesus had in mind.

I think He put us here and connected us together as a family of faith.  he gave us a new commandment that we love one another.  He actually used the word commandment not suggestion.  I know it sounds strange, but as a family of faith I think the PISS and CRAP rules apply.  When one of us is sick, we're all sick.  And we should spend our energy helping heal the illness rather than trying to just pull it out of our chest.

P.S.

When I stated that Christians ostracize people for "voting for a democrat" I, in no way, meant to indicate that there is something wrong with democrats who Christians who vote democrat.  I was simply pointing out that many Christians get all worked up over the republican/democrat debate and believe, for whatever reason, that the republicans actually care about the causes of Christ and that democrats worship Satan.  Both perceptions are absurd.