letter of the law vs. spirit of the law

So Brad has been ready to advance in scouting getting both is first and second class rank advancement oh for about 6 months now.. the hold up.. his scout leader was out of town the whole summer (he's a law student) THEN he was promptly released (AFTER he returned) and was hard to track down for a few months to sign his book and for some reason NO ONE else would sit down and talk with the boy and vouch that he had done these seemingly simple things (which in reality each individual thing was not so hard the on the hole was ALLOT).. ANOTHER hitch was our then scoutmaster was working a job where he was working tons of hours and wasn't available for many weeks then he moved leaving us with out a scoutmaster and the combo of it all put the whole program into kind of a tale spin.. we NOW finally have a new scoutmaster and the boys really like him but he's REALLY into scouting which on the whole is an AWESOME thing BUT he's also a stickler; in Brad's scoutmaster conference to get the for mentioned 1st and 2nd class rank advancements he asked Brad to show him some kind of knot which was passed off with a date way back in December of last year Brad couldn't show him the knot and so he wouldn't pass off the conference.. I was supportive of the leader in front of Brad saying "YEA you need to work on those" but REALLY FRUSTRATED with in my own mind and thoughts (don't worry i'm repenting)..
THANKFULLY in our scout committee meeting today I repeated a condensed version of the whole saga of why it's taken so long for Brad and some of the other boys to get these seemingly simple rank advancements completed and WHY some of the recollection of the elements of the advancements might be a little fuzzy and he understood and said he'd consider the scoutmaster conference done and let him advance BUT he'd still work on those knots with Brad because in his words "its ridiculous for a 1st class scout to not know the **whatever i can't remember the name** knot" in which I whole heatedly agree..

The other issue we have in the Fox home.. Ben didn't really do scouts he went to scout camp a few years in a row and got the EXACT same merit badges each year. he doesn't even remember what rank he made it to.. he was very into soccer and he had some leaders that insisted he choose which he did.. Soccer.. and so although we whole heartly support Brad and want him to succeed in scouting, it's as long as he's into it etc. we aren't going to be the type of parents who will prevent him from getting his drivers license or what ever else parents are doing these days to bribe their boys into getting their Eagles.. I want brad to get his Eagle as long as HE wants to get his Eagle.. enough said on that my only point with this is when I told Ben what our Scoutmaster said about the knot he basically said knots are knots who needs to know more than one way to get two pieces of roap to stick together.. then I reminded him that he knew several knots to get a fishing hook to stay on the line etc.etc.. he then gave me that look.. and said.. "those are useful knots!" HAHAHA!!! i guess you remember whats important to you..

So the lesson learned here.. I'm not quite sure yet.. that maybe the letter of the law is always good and OFTEN necessary.. but when a Mom pleads your case in regards to the Spirit of the Law and is NICE and not bit&&y then allot can get done...
ta ta