Robinson, Reuben A. (Bud). The Collected Works of 'Uncle Bud' Robinson (Kindle Locations 4497-4500). Jawbone Digital. Kindle Edition.
I want my readers to see how much greater God is than the devil is. God can take a man who is as crooked as the roundhouse, give him one touch, and make him as straight as a gun barrel. But let the devil take a straight man, and if the man will yield himself completely to the devil’s power, he can make him too crooked to sleep in the roundhouse. The devil has the power to make a man crooked, but it takes God to make a man straight.
Robinson, Reuben A. (Bud). The Collected Works of 'Uncle Bud' Robinson (Kindle Locations 4497-4500). Jawbone Digital. Kindle Edition.
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The story of the Napoleonic campaigns is familiar to all, how in the early wars a man was drafted in France, and being unable to go to the field himself hired a substitute and paid a good price for him, who went to the war, and fell on one of the battlefields. In a subsequent draft the same man was drafted again. He went to the recruiting office and produced his papers, proving he had hired and paid for a substitute, who had died on the field; and entry was accordingly make against his name: "Died in the person of his substitute on the battlefield of Rivoli." A.T. Pierson, page 26-27 in One Thousand Evangelistic Illustrations, edited by Webb, A. (1924). New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9-10, NIV) When I was a teenager, I heard a preacher make an impassioned plea in regard to the work of Jesus on the cross: “Jesus went through a lot of trouble just to get your attention!” Even a cursory understanding of the life and work of Jesus reminds us that there was a great deal of inconvenience in the life of Jesus: His birth was a struggle for His parents and for Him, He grew up in an arduous time and in a difficult part of town, He faced growing opposition as He sought to usher in a new kingdom, and He was put to death in the cruelest way imaginable. Indeed, Jesus subjected Himself to much trouble to “get our attention.” Too often as we point this out to unbelievers, we do the hard work of Jesus a disservice. Certainly, Jesus wanted to get our attention, but He sought more than just a one-and-done decision. The purpose behind Jesus’ struggle was not so that we can raise a hand, put our names on a list, and make future reservations for heaven. The passage cited above (1 Peter 2:9-10) asserts that, by following Jesus, we become part of a “holy nation,” a group of people who is called to be the people of God. That calling does not begin at death when we receive a heavenly reward. Rather, this new way of living begins the moment we say “yes” to Jesus who calls us by His Spirit to actively follow Him. It is no wonder that we in the Wesleyan tradition refer to salvation as “initial sanctification.” This means that our pardon from God through Jesus Christ is not the final step—it is step one of an eternal journey! It is a dynamic, life-changing, and world-changing relationship with our Creator, who has always been in the business of building His community. We receive this mercy—this pardon—so that we may assemble together to be instruments of God’s pardon and invitations to holiness to the rest of the world. That is what all the inconvenience was about, and that is what the kingdom is about today. Prayer: Dear Lord, no matter what trials await us tomorrow, may we never forget the blessings you have shown us. Help me cling to you as my anchor. Help me remember your steadfast love and faithfulness for me in all things. In Jesus' Name, Amen. (A prayer from Alistair Begg) This post was written by Charles W. Christian the managing editor of Holiness Today. You can find the original post here: holinesstoday.org/the-reason-for-the-inconvenience Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7 Observation: Paul had been in enough situations in life that he would have understood the temptation to worry. At the same time he had learned much about the faithfulness of God. This was a man who learned to pray continually, in every single circumstance of life, always giving the situation back to God. The result of Paul’s prayers was that he learned about the peace of God. This peace would wash over him, even when he couldn’t explain what it was that was happening in his life. He knew that by praying and spending time in God’s presence, the hearts and minds of believers would be guarded. Only in this way could peace reign in the most difficult of circumstances. Application: It seems that most followers of Jesus Christ would say that prayer must be a priority. At the same time, while we say this with our words, I’m not so sure that we practice it with our lives. Real time in prayer takes self-discipline and a commitment to spending time with the Lord. Paul had learned that prayer was a regular and on-going practice in his life. It had become a part of who he was and he was in continual conversation with the Lord. In the same way prayer is to become a part of our lives. It takes time and self-discipline so that we can develop this kind of a relationship with our holy God. Anxiety is pervasive in society and Christians are not immune. The promise from God is that we can live in the peace of Christ, even when in the midst of difficulties. After the resurrection Jesus appeared to his followers and declared, “Peace be with you.” This was his promise, even when he knew that they would all be facing challenging times and many difficulties. The peace of God was a promise that would bind the hearts and minds of those who were willing to daily soak in God’s holy presence. There will be plenty of situations in life that will cause worry and anxiety. We are challenged to live into a life of prayer, committing ourselves to getting to know Christ on an ever-increasing level. It’s then that the Prince of Peace becomes a greater reality, enveloping us in God’s holy love and presence. Prayer becomes the antidote for anxiety, for it unleashes the peace of Christ. Prayer: Lord, please lead me onward in my walk with you. Please hep name to dwell in that place of your holy peace. Amen. This post was written by Rev Carla Sunberg. You can find her original post here: reflectingtheimage.blogspot.com/2018/04/prayer-and-anxiety.html The rapid proliferation of pornography is one of the digital age’s legacies; some 40 million people in the United States visit porn websites regularly, many of them emerging or young adults. Popular media have capitalized on cautionary tales about porn addiction and stories of boyfriends objectifying their girlfriends and wanting them to behave like porn stars. But studies confirm that the preponderance of young men—and slightly less than half of women—thinks that watching sexually explicit material is okay. Source: That’s what Spencer B. Olmstead and his colleagues found when they asked college students about the use of pornography in future romantic relationships: 70.8 percent of men and 45.5 percent of women thought they would watch. In contrast, only 22.3 percent of men and 26.3 percent of women thought pornography had no role in a romantic partnership. Men and women tend to disagree on two issues: How porn is watched (alone, in groups, with a sexual partner); and how often it is watched. As Michael Kimmel reported in his 2008 book Guyland, young men often watch porn with their peers and for different reasons than older men. Kimmel writes that “guys tend to like the extreme stuff, the double penetrations and humiliating scenes. They watch it together with guys and they make fun of the women in the scene.” In contrast, older men with more experience either watch by themselves or with a partner, and with what Kimmel calls “wistfulness” about their younger selves; they tend to prefer material “where the women look like they are filled with desire and experience pleasure.” The Olmstead study found that women’s concerns had more to do with whether consumption of porn was limited than whom it was watched with. Men tend to think that watching porn has only positive consequences. As reported by Nathaniel Lambert and others in a review of studies, women whose partners watched porn regularly thought less of those partners and saw porn as more of a threat to the stability of their relationship. On the other hand, other studies have shown that young men and women alike think that sexually explicit material can help them explore their sexuality and adds “spice” to what they do in bed. Is watching pornography really as benign as people think? The following three studies reveal that it has a greater effect on relationships than those we usually discuss. 1. Porn-free relationships are stronger, with a lower rate of infidelity. That’s what Amanda Maddox and her colleagues found in a study of men and women, ages 18 to 34, who were in romantic relationships. The researchers measured the levels of negative communication, relationship adjustment, dedication or interpersonal commitment, sexual satisfaction, and infidelity. In their study, 76.8 percent of men and 34.6 percent of women looked at sexually explicit material alone; 44.8 percent reported viewing it with partners. They found that people who didn’t view any porn had lowerlevels of negative communication, were more committed to the relationship, and had higher sexual satisfaction and relationship adjustment. Their rate of infidelity was at least half of those who had watched sexual material alone and with their partners. But people who only watched porn with their partners were more dedicated to the relationship and more sexually satisfied than those who watched alone. 2. Watching porn diminishes relationship commitment. What these researchers discovered is that watching porn reminds you of all the potential sexual partners out there, which in turn lowers your dedication to the person you’re actually involved with. It also leads you to swap out the person who’s actually lying in bed with you for some fantasy person you’ve never met (and probably never will). Does that sound healthy? Nathaniel Lambert, Sesen Negash and others conducted five separate experiments to find out. In the first, they asked participants, age 17 to 26, who were in relationships (as long as three years and as brief as two months) about their porn consumption and measured levels of commitment. They found that porn consumption lowered commitment in both men and women, but with a stronger effect on men. In their second study, they had independent observers watch videos of couples performing an interactive task—one partner was blind-folded and had to draw something while the other gave instructions. Among the observers, lower commitment was observed among porn users. The third study only tested participants who had consumed porn. They had half the group give up porn for three weeks. The other half was asked to give up their favorite food, but were allowed to watch porn. The result? Those who had abstained from sexually explicit material showed increased commitment to the relationship at the end of the three weeks. The last two studies focused on the effect of greater attentiveness to alternatives on potential infidelity and infidelity itself. And yes, people who watched porn were more likely to engage in flirting (and more) outside their relationships in one experiment; and more likely to cheat and hook-up in the other. 3. The fantasy alternative leads to real-world cheating. In another study, Andrea Mariea Gwinn, Nathaniel Lambert, and others further explored the nature of the other alternatives imaginatively offered up by pornography. They suggested two possibilities: First, that seeing physically attractive and sexually available partners on screen may heighten a person’s perceptions of his own possible partners. And second, that porn may make the idea of multiple sexual partners more appealing—another wound to a committed relationship. And that’s exactly what they found. In one study, the researchers found that people who thought about porn they’d watched reported having better alternatives to their current relationship than those who didn’t. A second study showed that, over time, exposure to porn was a robust predictor of infidelity. More strikingly, the team found that both thinking about possible partners and acting on the impulse to find those alternatives operated separately from dissatisfaction with one's current relationship and partner. In other words, even though one's own pasture may be plenty green enough, just the thought of a greener one can be enough to send one roving. You might want to keep that in mind if you’ve been watching the hard stuff or if you've become inured to seeing your partner just flip open his laptop "just for fun.” Pornography is not as benign as you think, especially when it comes to romantic relationships. This post was written by Peg Streep of Psychology Today. You can find the original post here: www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/tech-support/201407/what-porn-does-intimacy What is “Negative Emotion Tolerance”? What is negative emotion tolerance? It is our ability to endure unpleasant emotions. Many of us have very low negative emotion tolerance. When we feel “off”–which could be stressed, bored, embarrassed, confused, disappointed, inadequate, insecure, etc.–we immediately feel the need to “make it better” quickly, regardless of the cost or the rationality of our decision making process. Let’s start with a stereotypical example. Perhaps the quintessential “low negative emotion tolerance” person is a grandparent with one of their grandchildren. The slightest unpleasant emotion–a pouty lip, much less crying–and the child will get anything he or she wants, from an ice cream cone to a pony. One thing we notice is that the magnitude of the unpleasant emotion does not have to be great when our tolerance is low in order to get us to make profoundly unwise choices. We often fail to learn from our failures and weaknesses Now let’s add another factor: our modern culture does not do unpleasant emotions well. We don’t teach people how to learn from failure, accept limitations, acknowledge and compensate for personal weaknesses, endure suffering, etc. These skill sets are significantly under-developed in our current cultural context. When are we getting to sexual purity? Stick with me. We’ll turn that corner soon. Does the fact that we haven’t valued stewarding and learning from unpleasant emotions mean we have fewer unpleasant emotions? Absolutely not. In a social media world, insecurity and comparative thinking runs rampant. In an advertising and athletic driven culture, only elite talents are valued. In a cosmetic medication culture, unpleasant emotions are believed to be “problematic” and erasable.[1] In a disjointed culture with few long-term friendships, we have few relationships in which we can be authentic about our unpleasant emotions. Why unpleasant feelings impact your sexual purity Now let’s ask the question, “What does sexual sin have to do with negative emotion tolerance?” or asked differently, “What features of sexual sin would make it particularly appealing to someone who struggled to endure unpleasant emotions?” One answer, among others, is that sexual sin is powerfully multi-sensory. Visual, auditory, touch, motion, and imagination are all involved (even when we are just talking about masturbation; smell and taste also get involved when a real person is present). How do we override something as powerful as unpleasant emotions? We involve as many senses and faculties as possible. Emotions are a whole-person response (we feel them with our entire being); sex is an equally whole-person response. It’s the equivalent of fighting fire with fire. Why does this matter? It helps remove some of the shame. “Why did I think sex in a low-commitment relationship would help my sense of inadequacy? Why did I think escaping through pornography would help my financial stress?” Stated this way, our action seems shamefully stupid. How does removing this shame help? It allows us to get honest earlier so that we can quit using sex for irrational secondary purposes. Try sharing your negative emotions with a trusted friend Think of it this way: what if your “accountability partner” to whom you reported sin and temptation was also an “authenticity partner” to whom you honestly confided your insecurities, disappointments, and weaknesses? Would your temptation change? If you were authentic and vulnerable about unpleasant emotions early in the temptation cycle would the temptation be less intense. What if during an unpleasant moment, instead of trying to escape, you asked yourself, “What am I really feeling?” and then knew someone who cared enough to listen. If you struggle with being able to answer that first question, consider this article on naming and identifying healthy emotional responses. Use your negative emotions to help somebody else Let’s take another step. What if after identifying the emotion and sharing it with a trusted friend you asked, “How can this experience help me grow or care for somebody else?” Think about it, unpleasant emotions are incredibly useful:
We serve a God who is not negative emotion averse. Our God is redemptive. Whatever shame we feel is either false shame or guilt derived from how we tried to escape from our unpleasant emotions; not because we have them. So what are the implications of this reflection? Here are a few:
[1] Please do not interpret this sentence to imply that I am anti-medication. I advocate for individuals to think wisely about the use of psychotropic medications and to utilize them without any sense of shame when they are a good-fit for their life struggles. This post was written by Brad Hambrick of Covenant Eyes. You can find his original post here: www.covenanteyes.com/2017/02/14/negative-emotion-tolerance-sexual-purity/ Let’s begin with what should be an obvious point: there is no exclusive, causative correlation between viewing pornography and poor mental health. Meaning there are many individuals who do not view pornography and have mental health struggles. Further, it would be entirely inappropriate to work backwards from a mental health struggle to deduce that it is caused by the viewing of pornography. The question this post poses–“how does viewing pornography impact someone’s mental health?”–is a contributive question, not a causative one. We want to consider, does the habit of viewing pornography add to or detract from the quality of someone’s mental health? A second clarification is also needed. This post is not trying to make a moral argument (implying that pornography is wrong because it has a negative impact on mental health). Wrongness is determined by whether an action aligns with God’s character and design. That is a more important, but separate, issue from the question of this article. An action can be immoral and have no negative mental health effects. As far as we know, taking the Lord’s name in vain (violating the third of the Ten Commandments; Exodus 20:7) does not have any negative mental health effects. An intended benefit from this reflection is the realization that God’s abstain for lust-based entertainment (Matthew 5:27-30) is an act of love–a means of protection intended to promote our flourishing, not a means of punishment to deprive us from something good. Too often the view we have of God as we think about pornography is as Him being against us and our joy instead of for us and our flourishing. Now to the title of this post: What are six ways that pornography affects our mental health? Each of the effects below is a common “side effect,” if you will, of viewing pornography that has a negative influence on mental health. The degree of impact each point has on a given individual will vary from person to person for a variety of reasons. Guilt No one feels as if viewing pornography is noble. Yes, there are teenagers who believe viewing pornography is “grown up” and may brag about it, or older individuals who view it as “necessary” or “common” and downplay the unrest in their soul. But no one feels like they have done a “virtuous-honoring thing” when they finish viewing pornography. The result is a sense of guilt–an innate sense that what was done was bad. Guilt produces a decline in mental health and the physiological changes from guilt in the brain can be neurologically demonstrated. For a highly habituated activity like viewing pornography, the options are clear: (a) turn off or dull the conscience to remove the sense of guilt, or (b) abstain from the guilt-provoking activity. The first option only further contributes to other choices that would further deteriorate mental health. Social Distance and Shame The first point has to do with a sense of distance in our relationship with God. This point emphasizes the impact on our social relationships. A common experience of viewing pornography is carrying a secret. Secrets create distance. We are left wondering “what would you think of me if you knew.” The result is that even our closest friendships begin to feel superficial or fake. The depth and quality of our friendships are a significant factor in our mental health. Activities that lower the quality or number of our friendships have a negative influence on our mental health. Crude-Depersonalizing Socialization People (i.e., actors or models) in pornography are not people to the viewer; they are a collection of features or objects of satisfaction. In a pornographic world people are not heard, assisted, and love. People are evaluated, ranked, and consumed. When hours are spent immersed in this world, these values begin to seep in. The logic is pretty clear, “If that is what I’m doing with everyone else, it must be what everyone else is doing with me. If I don’t rank, I don’t matter. I must associate with people who rank higher than I do in order to improve my rank. Life is a sport and there are far more losers than winners.” The result is that it becomes increasingly difficult to see individuals as people with innate value. Instead, people are a collection of assets (height, weight, complexion, humor, power, etc…) each of which can be added together to determine their value. Living under this pressure and/or treating people this way has negative impact on one’s mental health. Avoiding Unpleasant Emotions One of the primary motives for viewing pornography is to reduce or relieve stress. A passive approach to stress management results in an underdeveloped capacity for managing unpleasant emotions. The less equipped we are to withstand unpleasant emotions, the more overwhelming each experience of anxiety, depression, or other distress becomes. Add to this the idyllic narratives that are pervasive in pornographic material (the viewer always identifying with the central, pursued character), and the person who regularly views pornography is further conditioned to believe that the day-to-day, normal conflict in life and relationships are unbearable. One important measure of mental health is our capacity to be resilient in the midst of unpleasant emotions or circumstances. Pornography detracts from this capacity both by serving as an escape from healthily processing unpleasant emotions and reinforcing the belief that these stresses should not exist. Hyper-Multi-Sensory Stimulation Mindfulness–the ability to willfully focus one’s attention during adverse circumstances–is a significant contributor to mental health. Pornography is nearly the complete opposite of mindfulness. Pornography uses sound, sight, and tactile sensation to pull an individual from their actual world into an artificial, fantasy world. Combining multiple senses with an enticing narrative makes it increasingly difficult for less stimulating activities (which is most of life) to hold an individual’s attention. If the previous point was about unpleasant emotions, this point goes further; now merely unstimulating activities are increasingly difficult to meaningfully engage for an extended period of time. Consider how much of basic life management (i.e., budgeting, staying on schedule, honoring commitments, asking good questions in a mundane conversation, etc…) become difficult when we condition ourselves to avoid unpleasant emotions and mundane tasks. Then consider how doing a poor job at basic life management tasks negatively impacts one’s mental health. Time Lost to Constructive Activities The final point is more about what pornography prevents (indirect impact) than what it does (direct impact). Time spent viewing pornography is time not spent doing something more constructive (i.e., investing in hobby, talking to a friend, exercise, reading a book, etc…). The more we invest in things that are meaningful and substantive the better our mental health will be. Pornography robs many people of their hours in their week when they would invest in these constructive pursuits and gives them nothing in return. The more we engage in pornography the less time we have for good mental health habits. Conclusion Based on these observations it would make sense that an individual wanting to be a good steward of his/her mental health would abstain from viewing pornography. As you read through this list, the question you should ask yourself is, “When I have viewed pornography which of these effects have been most pronounced in my life?” The answer to this question should add to your motivation to honor God not only by abstaining from pornography but pursuing those things that would contribute to your purity and your mental health. This post was written by Brad Hambrick of Covenant Eyes. You can find his original post here: www.covenanteyes.com/2018/05/10/6-ways-watching-porn-affects-your-mental-health/ The American church as an institution is so great that it makes one stagger to think of its greatness. There are two hundred different denominations. There are nearly two hundred thousand local churches, with almost an equal number of ministers. There is a church membership of about 46,000,000, and there is scarcely any way to tell the real value of the church property. And yet this great institution is drifting with the tide of worldliness. As an institution, the church has very largely substituted church membership for the new birth and has substituted the activities of the church for the gifts of the blessed Holy Ghost. All that is left is a salvation without regeneration, and a Christianity without Christ. It is perfectly natural for such an institution to lead God to the back door and bow Him out of existence. God is not needed any longer to help run that kind of a church. Many times we find that the type of Christianity now found in the churches is simply human enthusiasm. This naturally leads the members to take the fire out of hell, for they see no need of eternal punishment, and to take the gold out of heaven, for they no longer need golden streets. They then make heaven a condition and not a locality. If heaven is only a condition, then where will our saints go when they die? Can a saint go to a condition? Some of the churches have substituted man’s wisdom for God’s revelation and according to them we no longer have an inspired Bible. It is not needed in a man-made church. They have removed the blood from the atonement, for according to them, man can redeem himself with his own good works and his own great wisdom and powers of learning. The deity and eternal Sonship of the Lord Jesus Christ also have been taken away, and so today we often find the Son of God is only a “nice, respectable gentleman,” and in many respects does not equal the scholars of the present day. Beloved brother and sister, the Book says, “How can two walk together except they be agreed?” Now, we don’t have to agree on who is to be President or who is to run for Congress, or who is to be county attorney. These things don’t enter into the wonderful statement from the blessed old Book. The Scripture refers to saints and sinners, for we read again the wonderful statement that the “friendship of the world is enmity to God,” and “He that is a friend to the world is the enemy of God.” And in still another place we read, “You cannot serve God and mammon,” or in other words, God and the devil. To make it just a little plainer, we cannot be worldly and righteous at the same time. When Christ comes in, the devil moves out. If you finally decide that you would rather have the devil in your heart and life, then Christ must go, for we “cannot serve two masters.” We will “hold to the one and despise the other, or else we will hate the one and love the other.” You ask, “Why do the Nazarenes preach holiness as a second work of grace?” This is the answer: Holiness is the only theory that we ever heard preached which ever got anyone into the experience of grace. All other theories allow the carnal mind to remain in you until you die. The second blessing theory proposes to get rid of the “old man” before death. See Mark 8:22,23,24, 25; James 1:8; James 4:8; Genesis 19:17; Romans 5:8,9,10,11, and Hebrews 13:12,13. Robinson, Reuben A. (Bud). The Collected Works of 'Uncle Bud' Robinson (Kindle Locations 4436-4460). Jawbone Digital. Kindle Edition. In one of the back courts of Paris a fire broke out in the dead of night. The houses were built so that the higher stories overhung the foundation. A father, who was sleeping with his children in the top garret, was suddenly awakened by the flames and smoke. The man sprang out of bed and vaulted to the window of the next house. Thus placing his feel firmly against the window sill, he launched his body forward and grasped the window of the burning house, and shouting to the eldest boy he said, "Now, my boy, make haste, crawl over my body." This was done. The second and the third followed. The fourth, a little fellow, would only do so after much persuasion, but as he was passing on he heard his father say, "Quick! Quick! Quick! I can not hold out much longer," as as the voices of friends were heard announcing his safety, the hold of the man relaxed, and with a heavy crash fell a lifeless corpse into the court below. So Jesus, in His own sacred body, provides a bridge whereby we may cross the chasm between us and God. The way home is through the rent vail, the crucified flesh of our Immanuel. W.T. Aitken, page 26 in One Thousand Evangelistic Illustrations, edited by Webb, A. (1924). New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers I know there are many problems in our world and country today. To say the least, we are a deeply divided nation. It spills over into all areas of life. It is true that our leaders from the President, Congress, Republican, and Democrats have not modeled for us measured language and excellent listening skills. All of this shows up in our interactions with nearly everyone. Perhaps a lesson in civility, and respect for others. Everyone will agree unless it is someone or something we do not agree with and then we must give them our opinion. For Christians, we are told throughout the Bible the importance of our speech: And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Colossians 3:7 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock, and my redeemer. Psalm 19:14 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Colossians 3:8 Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruits. Proverbs 18:21 So as Christ followers we have a mandate to allow the Holy Spirit to have control of our speech and the actions that follow. I know this from experience. I love to talk, and I have opinions. One of the outcomes of the sanctified life is that the Holy Spirit is my heart umpire. On numerous occasions He has reminded and instructed me to apologize and ask forgiveness, not just when I have been wrong, but when my attitude and spirit have been wrong. Yesterday I had a Doctors appointment adjacent to a local hospital. I must offer a disclaimer I was in pain and on pain medication. I arrived at the office and checked in with the receptionist. Two other receptionists were attempting to assist a very disgruntled patient. I hobbled to the only seat in the waiting room empty which was near the upset lady. I was at first sympathetic to the lady she was in a wheelchair, she was mature years-wise (around my age). They brought a manager who tried to assist her, nothing was helping, and the irate lady continued in a loud voice to scream and curse. The Manager gave her a number to call in an attempt to solve the problem. The lady proceeds to spew nasty, vulgar language directed toward the two young receptionists. I do not know what happened to me, but I turned toward the angry lady and said: “did your mother teach you to talk to people like that?” She turned toward me and stared at me. Then she replied “no, but my mother never had to deal with people like this?” (that is the sanitized version I can post) “Regardless ma’am I said I am sure your mother would not want to you speak to the folks in this manner. These ladies cannot solve your problem, and it is not their fault. They have been kind to you and have continually apologized for something that they did not cause. If you wait until after my appointment, I will go with you to the administrators’ office upstairs and help you lodge a complaint”. She said, “Thank you but I can’t wait, and she left with a few partying nasty words.” When she left the office clapped. The receptionist called back, and I got to see the Doctor immediately. Okay, I am not telling you this to show what a hero I am, after all, it was probably aggravation caused by pain more the spirituality. Steve Sjogren wrote a book “Conspiracy of Kindness” with all due respect, I would like to start a conspiracy of Civility. The way we talk and treat each other. I think I will send the first copy to the President, the Congress, all politicians, all businesses, all moms and dads, children, teachers, students, pastors, and then just the rest of us for good measure. Now, I know the reaction to this will be: You don’t understand how stupid and mean and evil people are.I agree that our leaders should be more kind and less mean. But I also believe that I should be more kind and less mean. I have given up thinking that change in our world is going to come from the top down. I think a good start would be at my house! How about joining me? Let’s treat everyone according to the “Golden Rule.” “Do to others what you want them to do to you.” This post was written by Dr Ron Blake. You can find his original post here: wesleyshorse.com/could-we-have-a-revival-of-civility/ |
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