Faith Venture

Our church sponsors a summer camp with the foundational theme of JOY-Jesus, Others, You. Put Jesus first in your life, then others, then you. Our society, at least in America, seems to be It’s All About Me. When I read about the political situation in our nation’s capital and the state capitals, what I see is “entitlement.” The difference between the parties is simply which group of voters, er, people are entitled to handouts. Even the Tea Party is all about me–they want to keep more of their money (but they don’t seem to want to give up programs that benefit them directly).

I travel a lot, so I spend a lot of time on airlines. As a frequent flyer, I board early in the process. It gives me an opportunity to observe. Last week a middle aged couple boarded with way more than the allowed two carry ons. The plane was a small regional jet with small overhead compartments. The woman had the maximum legal size roller case. Flight attendant told her to leave it on the jet bridge. Woman got mad. Attendant said, “All the green tagged bags must be gate checked.” Woman said, “What if I take off the tag?” Thing is, it would not have fit.

Then the couple starts looking at the limited overhead space to store their goods. Tried to use the space reserved for the bulkhead passengers who don’t have underseat storage. Flight Attendant, now their enemy, explains some things about storage. Man winds up putting a large shopping bag behind his legs blocking seat access. Oops, violation of safety rules. They have a couple of other violations. Flight Attendant makes several announcements over the PA system. Then on final check asks the couple to comply with safety regulation. They get even further mad. “XX is going to hear about this.”

OK, maybe they’ve never flown before. But when the world revolves around you, you don’t notice others.

Yesterday I wrote about a church where all the members care about others. Then I wonder, given our narcissistic society, is it possible to move people from self-centeredness to caring about others. Guess it takes God to break through?

This entry was posted on September 15, 2011 at 7:03 am and is filed under Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.