Campus police cruised up on me while skating in a parking lot, and informed me that skateboarding was not permitted. "Really," I commented. He reiterated to me that this was university policy. "Okay," I said sadly. I almost forgot and rode away on my skateboard, but caught myself, picked up my board and walked back to my van. I'd been skateboarding in that parking lot occasionally since I started going to school there 3 years ago and while I always avoided security because of the common knowledge that police harrass skateboarders, I never knew there was an anti-skateboarding policy in place. Regardless, it's understandable. Skateboarding is inherently destructive. We take chunks out of concrete and bricks and mortar when we ollie onto or grind our metal trucks over curbs and such. Playing rock and roll is also inherently destructive. A little bit won't hurt you but in the long run it impairs your hearing. As one who expresses exuberance through both skateboarding and hard rock, and as a Christian, it has occurred to me to consider my liberty to practice such noisy activities. We do, afterall, follow the one who "a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out" (Isaiah 42:3). I've since concluded that living is inherently destructive. To exist at minimum is to consume resources, create waste, and inevitably to inconvenience someone else and occasionally break things. Furthermore, a sedentary, risk-free life will almost always eventually be more destructive to the self than skateboarding will ever be to a sidewalk. An isolated life of never offending anyone would be far more detrimental to the soul than noisy rock music with a message intended to provoke thoughts of God would be to ringing ears. "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him" (Colossians 3:17). Just don't skateboard on campus.