WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?????????
Is it really so hard just to be polite? To say please and thank you or to acknowledge the presence of someone else in a room. Is it too much to ask that a door is held open for someone struggling with a large bag or a buggy? Would it kill the guy behind the counter who is dealing with some till malfunction just to glance down the queue and apologise for the delay? Grrrrrrrr. Can you tell that this is my pet peeve? There is absolutely no excuse for rudeness.As a Jo Jingles teacher I spend my days dealing with pre-school aged children. Many of whom are in playgroups or nurseries - some of whom I get to teach with their parents in a community hall. Its great fun. But one of the things I hear over and over again from nursery staff and parents is ' Say thank you to Caz'. Children are taught to say thank you when I give them an instrument, and I say thank you to them when they return it nicely to the box. They say thank you to me at he end of the class - and I say ' You are welcome , I had fun'. Perhaps this constant focus on teaching small people to be polite has made me super sensitive to bad manners in grown ups. Or maybe I've always been like that. But bad manners and rudeness really annoy me.
I was thinking about it yesterday as I pondered what to write in the blog. And I started to wonder why I get so cross. What is it about the lack of a please or thank you, the lack of courtesy which gets me so worked up?I think it has to do with the fact that being polite is actually an acknowledgement that someone has worth, that they matter, that what they have done has blessed you and you are grateful. Saying please or thank you removes an attitude of entitlement and in some tiny way humbles you in front of the other person. Gratitude is important. When we cease to be thankful we become arrogant, hard hearted and unpleasant. Which is probably why God places such importance on being thankful - there are hundreds of verses in both Old and New testament which exhort us to give thanks. The bottom line is that we are not entitled to anything at all - every good and perfect gift comes from Him, even the very breath in our bodies. Nothing is ours by right. We dont own any of it - its all a gift. We jolly well should be thankful, all the time, for everything.
In our family we have taught our children to say thank you often, so that now I am confident that when they go to the houses of friends or are in the company of others good manners are second nature to them. It always amazes me when their friends come round to our house and they help themselves to the biscuit tin without asking, get up from the table without saying thanks for dinner and leave the house without bothering to say goodbye. It is hurtful because it doesnt acknowledge me, as hostess and Mum and cook, It doesnt acknowledge the effort and time I have put in. But worse than that, it means that those children, who have not learned to be appreciative of others will possibly grow up to be unappreciative adults who take people for granted.
I wonder if God feels hurt and taken for granted and unappreciated when we help ourselves to His good gifts without a second thought, don't say thank you for the food/jobs/homes he has provided for us , dont bother to speak to Him for days or weeks. I suspect He is saddened by our ingratitude. But I expect He is always delighted when we are grateful, appreciative and humbly accepting of His kindness. Christmas is a time for giving and receiving - let's decide right now to be joyful, thankful, deeply appreciative receivers this year. Why not decide to say thank- you to ten people today - people who never get thanked. The guy mopping the floor in the supermarket. The traffic warden. The bin man. The person who takes your order for a taxi. They would all appreciate a thank you. A thank you is a blessing. And you are called to be a blessing to the world. So go forth and be thankful!!
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