PowerLunch day at our church in Birmingham, Alabama. 2018.
This meant it was the first Tuesday of the month. And Shades Mountain Baptist was serving a delicious lunch for $5. As usual, Pastor Danny would give a brief talk centered around biblical principles of leadership.
Open to the community, these lunches always drew a good crowd from local businesses.
Doris
I noticed a woman alone at one of the back tables, waiting for lunch to begin. Sitting down beside her, I introduced myself. Doris was her name.
Over chicken and green beans and mashed potatoes, we became acquainted. Doris, an English professor, had recently retired. From a local community college.
“I was a strict teacher,” she said. “I felt like it was important to keep my standards high.”
Favorite teacher
One of my favorite and most influential teachers was strict also, I told her. Dr. Ellie Heginbotham. U.S. Literature teacher at the Joint Embassy School in Jakarta, Indonesia (later the Jakarta International School).
Her class was never a walk in the park. But I learned and grew in my writing skills because of the way she graded our papers.
Doris nodded. Grading papers so carefully and thoroughly as she did meant her workload invaded evenings and weekends, she said.
Words weaponized
Then our conversation took a turn. She told me why she had retired. Earlier than planned.
The big push for online education eventually meant she had to teach classes online. And in our increasingly internet-driven society, students had become more and more disrespectful.
“It’s like they didn’t think I was a real person.”
When she taught online the comments were mean-spirited and rude.
I think about Doris today when online communities exit civility. And public discourse descends into shouting and slander in written form. Words weaponized to wound and destroy.
Civility
After conversation over lunch that day, we turned our attention to the speaker.
Danny’s topic? “Bringing Back Civility.” And he started with a quote by Maya Angelou.
“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
I watched Doris as he spoke. She was a living illustration of his talk. A woman who understood the crucial part civility plays in society. And one who desired to live the words with which Danny concluded. Instructions found in Titus 2:7.
“Set an example of good works yourself, with integrity and dignity in your teaching.”
What about you?
What are Scriptural instructions you turn to when social media shouts incivility? What has the Lord taught you about integrity and dignity?
4 replies on “Civility”
My Daddy once described words as buckets that you poured over someone. A mental image that has stayed with me for decades and makes me think about the ways I express myself-verbal or written.
Wow. Thanks for sharing that image!
Thanks for the article and the commenter’s ‘bucket’ illustration. A timely topic for this era of narcissism and lack of courtesy.
Indeed. Thanks for reading!