Monday, November 27, 2006

WHAT'S THE WORD.....

Whenever our older daughter asks for anything, she doesn't get it until we hear the word "please". Sometimes this very independent 5 year old demands things be done her way, but we stop her and say, "was that appropriate? How do you ask for something?" She quickly changes her tyrannical tone to a more pleasant one. It really is getting better.
Now politeness and manners vary from home to home (don't get the Means family in a room together, the topic always revolves around....oh, you'd rather not know), but one common thread is the concept of please and thank you. Or so I thought until I witnessed adults being so forceful and demanding I almost screamed, "was that appropriate?" I have now decided that if adults will act like 4 or 5 year olds, that is how they will be treated. When someone says, give me a napkin...my response is "what's the word?". When people demand and expect certain things, I look them in the eye and ask, "how could you have asked for _______ that would have been appropriate". Many times I get a look of shock, sometimes a sigh of frustration, but everytime the responses change.
It may seem silly to put people on the spot, but when did saying please and thank you become unexpected? When did we change as a society to give me, instead of please may I have ______. And once we have received, where did our mother's advice of saying Thank you disappear to?
In Matthew 12: 34, Jesus teaches about the connection of our mouth and our heart. "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks". If we can show gratitude in even the simplist expressions of "please" and "thank you" how much more can we be stretched when times aren't so "blessed"?
What do you think? Are we becoming an ungrateful and demanding people? How can we be examples to those whom we come into contact daily?

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