As I sit here with my mouth absent mindedly hanging
open while watching yet another senseless killing by police on our tv, I am
reminded of one very real fact. We have, and are, losing our decorum. We have
no sense of propriety and if we do, we are not using it. I won’t quote the
bible yet, but there are plenty of things to say there as well. Let me talk in
terms of this world so that you can understand. According to Merriam-Webster:
Definition of decorum
1: literary and dramatic propriety : FITNESS according to
strict neoclassic decorum only the aristocracy had the right
to appear in tragedy— Irving Babbitt
2: propriety and good taste in conduct or appearance strict in her
notions of decorum— Jane Austen
4decorums plural : the
conventions of polite behavior the established sobrieties and decorums of
English life— H. G. Wells
This is clearly a sign of an ongoing decay of our
morality. Now, before you get all huffy, I don’t mean literally everyone is lacking
morality. Just as I am not saying all civil servants are bad. We have plenty of
examples of the decent people with common sense and courtesy… still. I am sure
that you can agree, we are in moral decline. Immorality is not new. Morality
has not just been injured with a small wound flayed open and bleeding… it
smells putrid and decaying like a rotting life force left far too long unattended.
At what point in our world, did it become prudent, for
example, to be disrespectful and even belligerent to any authority
figure? We were taught that any authority figure deserves respect: Mom, dad,
grandma, teachers, coaches, police officers, bosses, and each other? If they don’t
deserve it, like our crazy Aunt Sally or our worrisome Uncle George, we feign
respect and use common decency and sense. We knew to walk away and stay away
from bad people and things. We are supposed to rise above it. Decorum.
When did common decency, the niceties and proper etiquette
start their decline? We used to have intelligent ways of dealing with difficult
situations, like when someone is rude or has less than adequate social mores,
we might have replied with a smile and used a tongue in cheek comment to defuse
the situation. Right or wrong regarding someone else’s behavior, we knew how to
let it roll off our backs; we knew how to behave. We knew the social tricks to
defusing difficult situations and rising above it. As it is now, in the world,
we simply feel it is justifiable to be, say and do whatever comes to mind with
no concept of decorum, propriety or consequence. In fact, the more ‘bad’ or
inappropriate we act, the better we fit in. We think we have the ‘right’ as
individuals to do and say what we want. That is half the problem.
Truly it is clear that our intellect and emotional maturity has suffered.
Prov 14:12:
“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death”
Any emotionally mature person has learned as a child “if
this, then that’ type of logic. If I put my hand on the stove, I get burned. If
I tell my mama no, I have to stand in the corner, if I come in late, I am
grounded, if I misbehave in school, I have detention, if I don’t do my job, I
get fired, if I threaten an officer, I get detained… etc. We learn how to use
common sense and decorum at an early age… well… that is another story for
another time… the family unit has turned into a nightmare story. There are very
few nuclear families with old fashioned values today.
I suspect this has always been the case, to a smaller
degree, since Adam and Eve ate of the apple without regard to their agreement
with God. That rotten apple slowly continued to rot the whole bunch. As our
lives became non-familial and businesses found a new God. Money. Money is the
root of all evil.
Money tore the fabric of the nuclear family when women
could no longer stay home and care for their children. That is where we taught
our children right from wrong and how to think critically and behave properly. Women
were forced to work because of the war, because of men who wouldn’t or couldn’t
provide for them, because of absent fathers and eventually, just because people
wanted to keep up with, or surpass, the Joneses.
It also became a real problem in this country when
businesses felt it was okay to use slave labor, cut corners at someone else’s
expense, withhold certain information that puts their employee’s health at risk,
lie and cheat to get ahead, get rid of people who are close to retirement and
all of the other immoral business practices that we accept as good business today.
We only need to look at insurance companies for good
examples. We are mandated to pay for insurance, whether for our cars, our
health or homes. Their idea of good business is that they take our money in
exchange for ‘insurance’ against something bad happening. It is a lot like
gambling. They gamble that less of us will have incidents to pay out than the
sum of us who pay. They have mathematic equations to calculate the risk. They make
money by not paying out when something happens. Try to use your
insurance and there are an inordinate number of co-pays and hurdles to make
anyone just want to give up. They are programmed to deny, hoping you give up and
can’t afford a lawyer. That makes them rich. That keeps us tired and poor.
Defeated if you will. Loss of Hope. This is considered normal and ethical.
There was a time that it would be unthinkable for a
woman to commit a serious crime, let alone a teenager. A police-persons job used
to be pretty simple in comparison with today. I can’t imagine a 1950’s police officer
coming into someone’s house and being afraid of mum cooking dinner at the stove,
dad reading the paper or the teenager listening to music upstairs. Now, when
they walk into the home, they have no idea who is going to be the one to put a
bullet in their back while they are trying to do their jobs. I can’t even
imagine the amount of stress it causes to put your life on the line every
single day for people who not only take it for granted… but for those who will
kill you at the drop of a dime for doing it. Why would you be willing to take a
job like that?! What must their dreams be like when they sleep… if they sleep? It
would cause my world view to become very narrow and very warped… especially without
the Hope of God in my life. It must influence their reflexes and thought life.
I remember years ago; Chris Rock had a video about what
to do when you are pulled over. It was more to do with what NOT to do. (Warning-I
don’t advise watching it: it has inappropriate language, a sign of the times,
but also has clear common-sense rules to stay alive.) There are other videos,
sad to say they are needed, with the same message and less swearing: “10 Rules
for Dealing with the Police.” Common sense rules that people just don’t stop to
think about or are too high on ‘justice’ or any substance they can find to be
able to think straight. You are not thinking clearly if you put your sense of ‘right
and justice’ ahead of your survival instincts. Look, when you are dealing with
a crazy person, uniform or no, you change your tact! You live to talk another day.
And to think that ‘if this, then that’ isn’t fair
is more along the lines of what a ten-year-old would think. There have and
always will be consequences to what we do. There is a law of gravity, the rules
of natural consequence and Murphy’s law, to keep us in check. What goes up,
must come down. If you use drugs, you become an addict. And finally, anything
that can go wrong, will. Listen folks, this stuff doesn’t change just because
you say it should. Logic is your friend. Education is your lifeline.
The world isn’t only domestic violence, robbery,
murder, drugs and alcohol that the police, and we as a society, have to contend
with. We are our own worst enemies. We are a plague to this world. Seriously,
Covid 19 has nothing on the plagues we come up with ourselves! Our world is STILL
enslaving people, CHILDREN even, for unspeakable acts for the sake of money;
not just selling their drugs to other kids to create addicts and help with
their bottom line… but selling children to perverts for sex! There is a special
hell for these people… although… Hell is bad enough.
Hosea 4: 1:2:
“Hear the word of the Lord, you children of Israel, for the Lord brings
charges against the inhabitants of the land: “There is no truth or mercy or
knowledge of God in the land. By swearing and lying, killing and stealing and
committing adultery, they break all restraint with bloodshed upon bloodshed.”
I see people dealing with those that are broken and
trying to heal as part of my job. If only everyone understood the gravity
of the situation. Even if you do not know their story, you must remember
who you are dealing with, what they have been through and have some sense of
compassion. Our first thought MUST always be, “If I don’t give them love and
encouragement, they might leave and die.” You can’t Lord your position over
them, let them feel that they don’t count, shake your head, use a sarcastic
tone, ignore or humiliate them and expect a better response from
them in return. They are broken and healing… but there is one
thing that you have clearly forgotten… YOU are too! All of us are trying to
heal and grow and we will never be finished. You haven’t MADE IT…
you are still on the journey until the day you die.
I can imagine that when these changes in the world started
taking place, the world did what we do when we are faced with the guilt of not
behaving how we should. Our nuclear families used to worship together and help
each other out with our love and time. Then, as our true broken self emerges and
people see us for what we are outside of the church, we slowly stop going. We try
to go to church without feeling convicted of our own sin but our dirt is all
over us no matter how pious we want to act. Say, for example, you are a
business owner who is shortchanging your employees, someone stealing from the
till or committing adultery. How can you continue seeking God when every time
you face Him, you feel convicted? You can’t; so, you don’t. You aren’t willing
to be moral, fair or ethical because it costs you money and profit. So, you choose
mammon over God.
Then, the last thing you need is for your child to
come home from church or school and tell you that this or that is wrong. So rather
than let them rise above you, you keep them from going to church and you remove
God from the school. And you still wonder why our world is dark without THE
Light?
It is simple really. I can’t look at any one situation
without seeing the evils of money behind it. Even the homeless drug addicts or
dealers must do whatever it takes to acquire money to get their next fix… even
if it means killing. It happens the same way when you choose money over your spouses,
family, friends and yourself. You work yourself to death for money instead of
finding a way to live within normal limits in life. Both parents have
to work full time jobs and have the biggest, newest cars, cell phones,
electronics, nicest name brand clothes, best schools, fake nails, salons, etc. All
of this is considered ‘normal.’ It is no wonder our families are fractured or
non-existent and our children are looking for instant self-gratification. It is
all they know. The apple, so to speak, doesn’t fall far from the tree… but it
rots just the same.
And then you wonder why your children turn out the way
that they do, why they turn to the wrong people or why they numb themselves
from the world. Do as I say, not as I do never works.
I don’t think that there is one identifying event, outside
of the whole apple in the garden thing, that I could point to and say, ‘THAT is
where we first went wrong.” We have been in moral decline since day one… or
whatever day it was, and we just keep getting better at being worse.
Romans 1: 24-25: “Therefore,
God also gave them up to uncleanliness, in the lusts of their hearts, to
dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a
lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed
forever. Amen.”
We are experts in justification because we set the
bible aside either permanently or whenever it is convenient for us as
individuals. Don’t kid yourself. As a Christian and human being, I know
Christians do it too. From the smallest form of favoritism, to the overlooking
of little rules, laws and guidelines just this one time for a good cause, to
the outright self-centeredness of continuously asking for tithes and building
yourself a castle instead of taking care of the masses in your hometown. We are
expert hypocrites, like everyone else….
Jer 5:30-31: “An
astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land. The prophets
prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power; and my people love
to have it so. But what will you do in the end?”
But some of us strive desperately for being more like
Christ. Stand with me in this today. Instead of speaking hate, speak life. Instead
of judging, have mercy. Instead of choosing the most expensive, ask how you can
better spend your time or money on those you love or others who need it. Instead
of being impatient or sarcastic, use encouragement and understanding. Instead
of justifying wrongdoing, find a way to be just. Instead of using others for
your gain, give to others so that they too may live. Instead of seeking
self-gratification, seek God. Instead of demanding what is right, humble
yourself and ask what you deserve. Instead of looking down at others, kneel
before God and have Him show you your true heart and how to heal it.
Mat 7:12: “So
whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the
Law and the Prophets.”
How can you change your life around so that we go back
to knowing and using decorum? How can we save our children from darkness and
immorality? How can we use better judgement and give people good examples of
how we should live? We can’t revive that rotten apple but we can
each plant another seed.
Rom 13: 8-10:“Owe no one anything, except to love each other,
for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You
shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall
not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall
love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore
love is the fulfilling of the law.”
