Word

This has been on my mind a lot lately, too. I'm truly appalled by behavior that others seem to consider acceptable. Don't even get me started on cell phones, especially cell phones at Feast! Cell phones during consultation! Cell phones during prayers! I'm sorry, but unless it's a life or death situation (in which case why are you attending?) I feel this is utterly inexcusable. After one incident in particular, I looked up courtesy in the Baha'i writings online and found many quotes, including the one Billy cited above. But what really rang a bell for me is that in Persian the word for "courtesy" is the same as the word for "reverence". Showing forth an attitude of reverence toward each other would preclude all of the above behaviors, wouldn't it? Uh-huh.

Yes. I think the problem is that people are babies for too long. Don't get me wrong, I like babies, in fact I love them. But sometime a baby is still a baby when he or she is in college, and then it isn't so cute. I think it's just a matter of self-centeredness, just not realizing that other people besides you have, feelings, or that other people's feelings are important, or that your actions actually affect antone besides you.

If that isn't the case then the it must be pure malice, which I think is rare. But I have noticed in some of my classes, especially when I've had large, lecture hall type classes that there are a certain number of students who seem to show disdain for the teacher and or the class, which is just really difficult to deal with.

Maybe we should hire The Rock to come over here and regulate a little bit.

I don't know... I see it plenty here, too (at the Baha'i World Centre, no less!). Granted, we look like paragons of courtesy compared to Israeli society. Sorry everybody, perhaps it's "cultural", but there ain't much that's polite here... But whatever, for some reason it hurts me more when I see Baha'is do it. Not that I'm Miss Innocent, but numbers 1 & 3 happen frequently here, too. Ick. Ouch. Ick.

Anyway, we're part of an ever-advancing civilization. If nothing else, working here has given me the sight to have confidence in that advancement. It will happen. Just no guarantees on WHEN.

I've been thinking about courtesy too lately, more related to trying to teach it to children and because I read this the other day:

(from Baha'u'llah's letter to Napoleon, right after chewing him out for being disingenuous about the Crimean War):

   We, verily, have chosen courtesy,
   and made it the true mark of such as
   are nigh unto Him. Courtesy is, in
   truth, a raiment which fitteth all men,
   whether young or old. Well is it with
   him that adorneth his temple therewith,
   and woe unto him who is deprived of this
   great bounty.

For some reason, that really stuck with me. I had been kind of harping on "be polite!" and that quote made courtesy seem much more weighty than I had been treating it.