The Great Beer and Skirt Rebellion: When Rules Eat the Principle Alive

 

The Moral Nutrition Beneath the Law

Intro: A Skirt Challenge at the Rock

When our family lived at Rockland Ranch, a remote community carved into the cliffs of southern Utah, one of the women challenged the young girls to wear dresses or skirts for a set period. If they succeeded, they would earn a special dinner date with their dads.

As their mother, I didn’t see inherent virtue in skirts over pants. I believed modesty, femininity and obedience come from the heart, not the hemline. But I also felt that familiar tension, the slight unease that shows up whenever “goodness” starts getting measured by fabric instead of character.

So I left it entirely up to my girls. If they felt drawn to the challenge, they could take it on, no pressure, no guilt.

They chose to participate. They wore skirts whenever they stepped outside our home, but always with shorts or jeans underneath for hiking, climbing, and the rough-and-tumble play that filled their days in that wild desert place. The moment they crossed our threshold, though, the skirt came off, back to freedom and comfort.

I never quite grasped the deeper principle she hoped to honor. Perhaps she was hoping to cultivate virtues like grace, joyful submission, or heartcentered modesty, but virtues are fruits, not foundations, and they can't survive long once a rule replaces the principle meant to nourish them.

Later, I discovered most of the other girls in the community had done exactly the same thing: complied outwardly while secretly adapting underneath. They all earned their dinner, of course 😂

This experience taught me something enduring. In our pursuit of truth and life aligned with God, we can follow instructions meticulously yet still feel spiritually empty if the heart isn’t transformed. We risk confusing the tool, the rule, with the goal: righteousness itself. That’s a trap many sincere people fall into, and it’s one the Lord invites us to escape by recovering the deeper, unchanging moral nutrition beneath the surface.

Quick clarification: “Principles, not rules” isn't an argument for chaos, loopholes or doing whatever we want. It’s an argument for aiming at the living purpose of God’s law, so obedience becomes trust and transformation, not control and compliance.

I. The Problem We Keep Running Into

Many sincere people obey rules meticulously and still feel spiritually empty. Why? Because they confuse the instructions with righteousness itself. Obedience becomes technical compliance rather than heart-deep transformation. We can follow every step perfectly and still drift into fear, distortion or spiritual malnutrition, even while appearing outwardly faithful.

This isn’t a modern quirk, it’s ancient. The Pharisees tithed mint and cumin while neglecting justice, mercy and faith. Legalism hollows out the soul.

And we can see it in everyday life, too. People can “keep the standards” and still become suspicious, brittle or cruel in conversation. Everything looks correct on paper, but the spirit of the thing is gone.

One way to identify the difference is this: there is obedience that grows out of trust and love and there is obedience that grows out of fear and control. The first softens the heart. The second hardens it, even when it looks impressive from the outside.

Principles elevate and ennoble. Rules, when detached from their purpose, tend to consume attention instead of transforming the heart.

II. What a Principle Is (and Is Not)

A principle is an unchanging moral truth that directs behavior toward flourishing and life. Rules are practical tools that serve principles. They are not replacements for them.

Some have described this difference as the spirit of the law versus the letter of the law. The letter gives instructions, but the spirit gives life. When the letter is followed without regard for the spirit, obedience may continue, but transformation stops.

Principles bless and nourish, rules manage and guide. Principles are intelligible, they can be reasoned about and explained. Rules often cannot explain themselves beyond “because” especially once people forget why the rule existed in the first place.

When rules begin to harm, distort or become ends in themselves, the principle must be recovered to restore health.

Think of it this way. Commandments (or rules) are like meal plans, specific, structured instructions designed for a goal (for example, “Eat eggs for breakfast, no carbs after 6 PM”). Principles are the nutrition: the core essentials like protein for repair, vitamins for immunity, balance for vitality.

If you follow a meal plan robotically without understanding nutrition, you can still end up malnourished while obeying perfectly. Meal plans often need to change across seasons, bodies, illnesses, pregnancies, workloads and life stages. Nutrition doesn't change. The same happens spiritually. Rigid rule-keeping without the underlying principle can starve the soul.

Rules are meant to serve principles not supplant them. When a rule begins to harm what the principle was meant to bless, the rule has outlived its usefulness.

III. Why Principles Matter for Discernment and Sanity

What we aim at shapes what we see. Fixation on fear, darkness or obsession warps perception. Jesus taught, “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light.” Principles act as stabilizers. They keep us oriented toward God, truth, and love, helping the mind remain grounded rather than spiraling into narrative distortions or fear-driven loops.

This also ties into the “treasure of the mind.” What we treasure inwardly becomes the lens through which we interpret everything. Attention functions like spiritual gravity. The mind falls toward what it repeatedly stares at.

And this isn't just philosophical. Fear-based spiritual environments can train the nervous system to interpret difference as danger. That sort of chronic vigilance doesn't produce charity, it produces distortion. Principles anchor us back in light.

Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Christ called this the second great commandment. It is not merely a rule, it's an unchanging moral truth that governs how we see and treat others. It cannot be reduced without being violated.

This single principle unfolds into inseparable facets, like faces of one diamond:

• Recognition of inherent dignity and equality: Every person has intrinsic worth. Treat people as ends, never means
• Reciprocity and empathy (the Golden Rule): Do to others as you would have them do to you. Imagine their position.
• Active goodwill: Will and advance their true good, even when it costs you something.
• Compassion, mercy and practical kindness: Show concrete empathy, especially to the vulnerable. Mercy tempers justice.
• Healthy self-love as the measure: Use your natural desire for your own well-being as the standard for others, neither egoistic nor self-destructive.

Countless commandments flow from this single source. When people keep rules while violating this love, for example, harsh judgment with no mercy, the law becomes hollow.

We can see the distinction by looking at the layers beneath Christ’s teaching:

Principle: Love is the condition that allows human relationships and communities to flourish.

Law: When love is violated, trust collapses and relationships fracture.

Precept: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Virtue: Charity or compassion, the capacity to live this consistently.

Rule (example application): Speak honestly about others rather than assuming motives.

A sobering thought: it is possible to “obey” in a way that protects an institution from discomfort while harming a person made in God’s image. When that happens, the principle has been traded for a performance.

IV. Dante’s Inferno as a Moral Diagnostic Tool

Dante Alighieri’s Inferno maps what happens when moral choices are allowed to complete themselves. Dante isn't Scripture, but he is a moral cartographer. He shows where choices tend to lead when left uncorrected. His point isn't “gotcha verdicts” it’s consequence: a trajectory, a destination, a kind of moral physics.

Hell in Dante isn’t arbitrary punishment, it’s contrapasso, poetic justice where the sin shapes the soul. By showing the consequences of violated principles, Dante serves as a vivid diagnostic: the end state of living without moral nutrition.

Here are three principles illuminated by Dante, with brief modern parallels:

1. There is no true neutrality
   In Canto III, the lukewarm or “neutrals” chase a blank banner, stung by insects, rejected by both Heaven and Hell. Moral apathy or fence-sitting is itself a choice. It rejects the responsibility of free will.
   Modern parallel: Avoiding stands on justice for convenience, or leaning on “both-sides-ism” leaves us restless and ineffective.
2. Justice is proportionate to the distortion of love and reason
   Fraud (deeper than violence) perverts trust and intellect, the divine gifts. Punishments mirror this corruption.
   Modern parallel: Lies in leadership or manipulation erode society more insidiously than overt harm.
3. Disordered love produces isolation
   Sin contracts inward. Lustful souls are tossed by winds, passion unchecked. Traitors are frozen in ice, love chilled. Evil isolates. Goodness expands.
   Modern parallel: Self-centered choices lead to loneliness and broken communities.

Dante shows the physics of moral choices. Principles violated tend toward contraction and darkness. Principles honored tend toward light and communion.

Dante isn't Scripture, but like the Pharisees' example earlier, he simply maps where rule-bound hearts (detached from love and principle) tend to end, isolated, contracted, far from the communion Christ invites. This connects back to my skirt story in a more subtle, everyday way: outward compliance can “succeed” while the inner aim remains unchanged. Dante simply shows what happens when that pattern hardens and completes itself.

V. Principles as Guardrails Against Modern Distortion

When groups or individuals replace principles with fear-driven rules or narratives, reality slips away. Suspicion fills the vacuum. Then motives are assumed, people are sorted into camps, and the mind starts living on rumor instead of light.

Dante reveals the endgame of principle-less living. Christ restores through love, light and reason. The remedy is not rulelessness. The remedy is returning the rule to its rightful place as a tool, not a god.

When a “Principle” Isn’t

A true or holy principle:

• Flows from love of God and love of neighbor, even when mercy and precision compete.
• Nourishes life, freedom, and genuine growth, softening the heart rather than hardening it.
• Honors agency and conscience, inviting rather than coercing.
• Produces fruits like peace, trust, humility and connection, even when the path is difficult.
• Remains unchanging in essence, even as its applications adapt to context.

A false or distorted “principle” even when sincerely held:

• Contracts love, prioritizing control, fear or performance over people.
• Replaces heart transformation with external conformity and tends to harden rather than soften.
• Violates dignity or sacred boundaries, including conscience and home.
• Requires constant defense or enforcement because it lacks moral gravity.
• Leads, over time, toward isolation, mistrust or  disengagement.

Examples change. The test does not.

VI. Bringing It Home: How to Use Principles in Real Life

Shift from rule questions to principle questions:

• Does this bless or distort?
• Does this bring light or feed fear?
• Does this advance real good or merely compliance?
• Does this draw me closer to others in truth, or further into isolation?
• Is this rule helping someone grow in love and responsibility, or is it mainly protecting an institution (or a majority) from discomfort?
• Does this honor agency and the sacred stewardship of conscience, especially within the home?

Rules may adapt or change. Principles must not.

The Beer Incident 

We lived at Rockland for over a decade, so naturally there are plenty of stories. One that  stands out involved a long-standing community rule: no alcohol allowed.

When we arrived, we understood it to mean no alcohol in public or shared spaces. As time went on, it became clear some interpreted it more broadly, leading to ongoing tension between those who wanted strict enforcement everywhere and those of us who believed private homes were off-limits to communal oversight.

One afternoon a few of us women gathered at a friend’s house for conversation and a beer. We poured it into glasses with a slice of lime and settled in to talk. We weren’t hiding or rebelling for the sake of it, just enjoying a simple, private moment among friends.

Not long after, a woman from the community barged through the door without knocking (which is a serious boundary cross in my book). She walked straight to one of the glasses, picked it up, sniffed it and announced, “Oh, are you guys drinking beer?”

We owned it calmly: “Yeah, we are. Just having a beer.” She made some light small talk, then left.

Word spread quickly. At the next community council meeting, it became a hot topic. The homeowner’s husband spoke up strongly: his home was private, and no one had the right to enter uninvited and inspect. The other side argued that since alcohol was banned, suspicion justified intervention.

The discussion got heated, but it didn’t change our choices. We continued to enjoy beer or wine privately when we wanted, and even incorporated wine into our sacrament observances. Interestingly, after our family eventually moved away, the community changed the rule to align more with what we had argued for all along, respecting private homes.

Looking back, this wasn’t really about beer. It was about jurisdiction. It was about what happens when a rule expands beyond its original nourishing principle, perhaps community health, sobriety, or mutual respect and becomes a tool for control and suspicion. When that shift happens, trust erodes, division grows and the heart of relational living gets missed. True principles honor agency, sacred boundaries and personal revelation, inviting transformation rather than forcing compliance. When those get lost, even well-intentioned rules can turn invasive and the Spirit’s guidance in our own homes gets overshadowed.

This was the moment it became clear that the rule had drifted from its original purpose. What may have begun as care for the community crossed into something oppressive, and when that happens, the principle it was meant to serve has already been lost.

VII. Closing Reflection

Principles aren't cold abstractions. They're moral nutrition. What we repeatedly choose becomes who we are. Light grows where love, truth and responsibility stay aligned.

Dante holds up a mirror to the consequences of neglect. Christ offers the way back. Recover the principle, nourish the soul, and refuse the trap of mere performance.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light.” 

A Quick Side Note

I had actually never heard "Still Standing" until a cousin I really love, someone who has been  opening up a bit about his own faith journey, recommended it. I listened mostly because it mattered to him.

The song met me square in the chest while I was already knee- deep in writing this post. The timing wasn’t dramatic. It just felt easy. Like the words I had been reaching for showed up wearing someone else’s voice, right when I needed them. A small nudge that said, "this fits."

Okay, hear me out....

What if we listened to "Still Standing" as the unobtrusive, ancient voice of a true principle speaking back to us? Picture it this way. Storms of rules come crashing down, compliance piled on compliance, procedures multiplying, fear-driven overreach, expectations sharpened and weaponized. They try to bury the foundation beneath layers of performance and control. They misunderstand the truth, misuse it, even twist it, all in the name of protecting it.

But beneath all that chaos, the song holds its steady pulse. Not frantic or defensive. Just enduring. Tested, pressed, misunderstood yet completely unmoved. That's not ego shouting defiance. That's the principle itself, older than any rule, patient as bedrock, finally speaking.

It doesn't argue. It doesn't rebel. It doesn't need to win or convince anyone.

Rules tighten, fracture and get rewritten, in councils, creeds or the next generation’s handbook. They rise and fall like waves. Principles don't chase them. They wait. Intact. Unkillable. Low-key doing what they've always done: orienting every willing heart back toward truth, love, genuine life and the kind of freedom that can't be legislated or taken away. No vindication. No “I told you so.”

Just moral gravity.

Still standing.