I was at a major chain bookstore the other day when, on my way out the door, one of the super-discounted sale books in the entranceway caught my eye. I stood there for a few minutes flipping through the book.

As I put the book back on the shelf, it occurred to me how easy it would be for me to steal that book. I was six inches from the front door. Another heavy door separated me from the rest of the store. No employees—for that matter, no other people—could possibly see me. I wouldn’t have even had to slip it under my coat. No one would have noticed or even cared. After all, the book was marked down to $4.95 from an original price of $30. It was costing the store more to move these books from place to place than it would ever hope to make actually selling them.

Why didn’t I steal the book? Was it because the flip-through told me I didn’t really want it? Was it because I was afraid I would get caught? Was it because the cup of coffee I was drinking was a good enough substitute for the cheap thrill of petty larceny? Was it because it’s wrong to steal? Was it because it’s not what Jesus would have done?

When I was in kindergarten, I stole something. I took some change out of the box on the teacher’s desk where the milk money was collected. I made up a huge story to tell my parents—something about a bunch of relay races in class, with nickels, dimes, and quarters for prizes. I was on the blue team. My parents, naturally, weren’t very happy with me. I distinctly remember the shyness, embarrassment, discomfort, and outright pain involved in the private conference with my teacher where I was “given the opportunity” to ‘fess up.

Law, punishment, character?

I think that might be why I didn’t take the book. Maybe that formative experience so deeply impressed upon my little six-year-old psyche that stealing is wrong and there was no way I was going to steal anything ever again, even 30 years later.

It’s important to note the italicized phrase in the last paragraph: stealing is wrong. My parents must have done a good job teaching me that lesson. But it occurs to me that that’s not all my brush with justice must have taught me. There must have also been a correlative lesson that got passed on, or maybe an earlier, more fundamental lesson that I learned from somewhere else: I don’t do things that are wrong. This lesson is also important, even more important than the lesson that stealing is wrong.

As a kindergartner I received all sorts of age-appropriate punishments for my thievery, but nothing was ever said about the lies I fabricated to hide the stealing. I was never, to the best of my recollection, ever punished for the huge “blue team” lie I had told my parents.