I'm talking about that Congressional effort to get the Ten Commandments posted in classrooms.

I was a teacher before becoming a preacher, and I, too, thought the kids just don't know the rules.

So, in my first year of teaching, I decided to make the rules clear to my eighth grade English classes. And I went much further than the Lord God. I didn't stop at ten.

I had 38 commandments! -- three full pages of "Classroom Rules."

They involved the usual: #2 -- Don't talk to your neighbor without permission. # 6 --No gum. #23 -- No animals in the classroom.

That last became an issue the day Susan said to me, "Mr. Brennan, what would you do if John had a bird under his coat?"

He had one, of course -- found wounded on the schoolyard.

Rule #1 might surprise you: "Do not -- under any circumstances -- touch the window shades." There were 15 shades in my classroom. And my eighth graders seemed genetically incapable of operating a window shade without disaster.

And listen -- Paul was talking about The Law that Congress wants to put on classroom walls.

Kids know the rules. They often lack the motivation to keep them.

The Christian answer is not law, but relationship. I serve God because God first loved me.

My students settled down when I let them know that I cared about them -- that I was for them -- on their side.

They worked for me when I let them know that I set the boundaries out of love and concern for them.

Love includes the law.

But law can be administered without love, and often is.

There we have the genius of our Lord -- making us look into our own hearts and feel what the neighbor feels. It is The Law in terms of love.

By the way, to keep those folks in Congress from playing politics with religion, I suggest they post something on their walls.

The Constitution.