R-E-S-P-E-C-T

In the film "Dead Man Walking," Susan Sarandon's Sister Helen upraids Sean Penn's character for his disrespectfulness after he makes a lurid remark. He asks if she feels she's due this respect just because she is a Nun, and she replies that no, she is due it because she is a person.

Increasingly today, we regard each other as commodities to be exploited. We all do it. I can think of a few times I've done this in the last twenty four hours. Who has not looked at another person and thought only of what you can get from that person?

On the bus this morning, the bus driver was gruff with a couple of riders. Beside me, some women were sympathizing with how hard it was to be a bus driver dealing with the public all the time, but how he should just grin and bear it.

I thought about it some, but I just cannot draw any conclusions. I know from personal experience how hard it is to fake sincerity (irony intended.) What are we looking for? If we cover up our grufness, are we doing so as a defensive mechanism to avoid complaints from others on how we interact with them? Do we put on pleasantries in order to win their business?

To my mind, these things show no respect to ourselves or to the people we are pretending for.

There is only one reason to be pleasant to others. It is that small mercy we do to each other, because we know we need it done for us. How many times has some stranger shared a smile with us that took away the cloud over our heads? How many angels of mercy have rescued us in small ways, leaving something we really needed with a lost and found department, or given us directions we could not do without?

In all our waking hours we have the opportunity to be that person for someone else. If there is ever a reason to break out of our commodity dealings with each other, it is this reason. You may save someone - in small ways only, perhaps.

But not everyone you can save lies beaten on the roadside needing a Samaritan. Sometimes they just need a smile. :-)