In the play, and subsequent movie, Steel Magnolias, Ouiser brings a load of tomatoes into the beauty salon. They ask why she is giving them away and Ouiser tells them that she hates tomatoes and would never eat one. Then why to you grow them they ask. She answers, “Because I’m an old Southern woman and we’re supposed to wear funny looking hats and ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt. Don’t ask me those questions. I don’t know why, I don’t make the rules!” We can follow the rules without knowing why as Christians as well. Jesus tells us to “obey and teach the commandments” not as an end in themselves but as a means of getting closer to God.
