A GREETING AND A SMILE GO A LONG WAY TO MAINTAIN CIVILITY..........

Good manners and common courtesy are oftentimes being unobserved in an increasingly self absorbed and personally fearful society, diminishing what once was standard humane civility. My parents trained me and my siblings that when you approached or passed another person as you walked along, you acknowledged their presence by a quick hello, a nod, or a smile. Not that children or adults should be oblivious to strangers, or be taken vulnerable to untoward agendas, but rather simply express your good intentions. Each passing generation seem to have lost, if not learned, that basic facet of everyday etiquette. I have seen it go unpracticed multiple times in recent months, in parking lots, shopping centers, on sidewalks, and even in doctors offices and hospitals. Some of the latest occurrences of what I am describing which I experienced, when greeting someone walking along the path, was an indifferent, why would I greet you, silence as the person rushed away. Or a brief hello, good morning...afternoon...evening..., being responded to with a grunt ! As though it did not deserve a word or two back, in response. Most of us also have another primary reason to be courteous and sociable in greeting those we encounter, even just in passing...Our Christian Discipleship requires we place faith over fear, kindness over indifference. So think about the anonymous individuals you may come across in the days ahead. How will you respond to them ? Hopefully it will be with a brief, warm greeting, not a thoughtless rushing past them, as though they are lepers in your midst..........In the Joy, Peace, + Light, of Jesus the Christ Who Continues to Come into Our Presence, Fr. Troy