R – E – S – P – E – C – T

Most people, upon seeing that word spelled out, might begin to hear Aretha Franklin belting it out in the back of their minds.  Respect is a funny thing.  It has to be earned; it’s sometimes demanded; it can’t be bought; we all long for it to be present in our relationships, and yet years of work establishing it can be swiped away in a single action or argument.

In my classroom worship at the start of Geometry yesterday, we read the verses found in I Timothy 5: 1 & 2.  “Don’t correct an older man.  Encourage him, as you would your own father.  Treat younger men as you would your own brother, and treat older women as you would your own mother.  Show the same respect to younger women as you would to your sister.” (CEV)  I asked them to summarize the concept in these verses in one word.  Concern, care, love, compassion… but the overwhelming majority went with respect.

We talked about whether it’s easier to be kind and understanding to the people closest to you, like your little siblings, or to the people you only interact with occasionally.  I shared with them that I usually find it pretty easy to be friendly to the grocery checkout person, the school secretary who always smiles at me, or the person sitting next to me at a gardening lecture.  However, I struggle a little bit more with my large 8^th grade class whose members are generally far more interested in surreptitiously passed notes and chatting with their neighbors than they are in participating in examples about slopes of lines.  And if we really get down to brass tacks, there’s the 2% of the time when the man I’m dating drives me nuts when he makes a decision I disagree with, or there are those times when my mother and I still see the world from opposite perspectives and neither of us can swing around the circle to see it from the other’s point of view.

So I hear Paul, and I know from the life experience gained between 7^th grade and age 33, that he’s right when he says encouraging works better than correcting and that respect ought to characterize ALL of our relationships.  So I’m inviting God’s Spirit to fill me this week, requesting that when people go out of my presence, they will feel they were loved and respected.  And I’m praying for the wisdom and grace to treat those with whom I spend the most time--those who are closest to me--with just as much interest and compassion as I extend to the visitor checking out my church or school.

                                                

piRsquared