"I don't know how to make good people!"

This is what I said to Jessi as we were walking back to the house tonight after our Greek Life Task Force meeting. In our meetings, we have been working on a strategic plan for Greek Life based on 6 areas we felt were the most important: Recruitment, Public Relations, Scholarship, Inter-Greek Relations, Leadership Development, and Community Standards. Tonight we were focusing on the last one: Community Standards, how we hold each other accountable. Bob (the Director of Greek Life) at one point asked us all how our respective sorority/fraternity was founded. We all answered similarly: a handful of people (3-8) got together and decided they wanted to start something new, something that bound all of them together and meant something. Bob's point was that we get so bogged down in the rules, regulations, and policies that we forget the reason we are in our sorority/fraternity. We forget what this is supposed to mean to us, what it meant to our founders.

He then asked us how that is connected to Community Standards. We didn't really know what to say. One guy piped up and said we need to make sure our members know our standards and live them. Bob's next question to us was: how do you live that out? How do you get your members to live it and not just know it?

This really convicted me for a few reasons: 1) Am I living out our standards? Do I know our standards well enough to live them out? 2) What is our house doing to educate our members on our standards and how to live them out? and lastly...as he was talking about this, I felt like he was asking us to make good people, to make our members good people who uphold our standards. Through talking to Jessi about this, I exclaimed, "I don't know HOW to make good people!" While that wasn't really Bob's point, it got me thinking. How ARE good people "made"?

The first thought that went through my head was God. Living for God changes a person, changes how they act and who they are. Yet there are many people in this world that are considered "good" people, not good according to God's standards, but to man's. So how do those people become good? The next thought that went through my head: parents. The way a person is raised has a lot to do with how they act and who they become. Growing up, I heard several people comment to my parents on how good we (the kids) were, how well-behaved we were, etc. I know a lot of this has to do with their relationships with God and the love for God that they instilled in each of us. However, I believe there is more to it than that as well. My parents were AMAZING parents...still are. No, they don't do everything right, they aren't perfect, no one is. But my parents brought up four kids in such a way that has been admired by many. They made good people out of us, with God's help. I can only hope and pray to be the same kind of parent someday. So, here's to you, Mom and Dad, and to all you have done for me and my brothers and sister. Thank you for making me who I am today. I LOVE YOU!