May the Lord watch you like a hawk, because you violated so many promises to me in the past,

and I've been as much of a crook as you have.

Now, how that ever devolved into a saccharin type dismissal blessing for youth fellowship

is beyond me.

When I was a young man, I went to the youth fellowship of our church, and I, frankly,

admit that the only reason I went was for the social programs that were involved there,

but at the end of each fellowship meeting, we all had to gather in a circle and hold hands

and recite the Miss Paup benediction.

And we recited that benediction, and it goes like this, may the Lord watch between me and

the while we were absent one from the other, which has its roots in the patriarchal period

on the struggles that Jacob had with Laban and with his brother and so on.

And when they met, and they came to a certain agreement to end the hostilities between them

and between their soldiers, as it were, and they came to that agreement, they ended their

meeting by saying, may the Lord watch between me and the water absent from the other.

The whole idea there was not may the Lord protect you, or the Lord protect me while

we're absent, but may the Lord watch you like a hawk, because you violated so many promises

to me in the past, and I've been as much of a crook as you have.

And so the only one that can really arbitrate over us in terms of the history of this relationship

is God himself.

Now, how that ever devolved into a saccharin type dismissal blessing for youth fellowship

is beyond me, but that reflects how even the church in this day and age misses the point

of an appeal to God in the swearing of an oath or the taking of a vow.

...