Growing up, my parent's had no problem with attacking my "curious" nature with sound lessons. I was taught to respect my elders, know my role, strive for the highest, rub some dirt on it, shake it off, and turn the other cheek - just to name a few. I have since learned that these lessons were intended to make things easier for me as I carved my chunk out of the big wad of junk we call "life." I was also taught things like - "Honor your father and mother or we will make sure that your days on this earth are short" (I learned that this is only partly scripture), and "Saying 'you're sorry' doesn't mean anything unless you change what you are doing." My attitude and intent, regretfully, were not changed in the least. I respected my parent's, but felt that they had no clue as to what I was going through, and they couldn't possibly be right all the time. Now that I have children, I see that all of these lessons that they threw my way were more of a life preserver that I would need when the muscles started to cramp up. They knew that I wasn't going to get out of the water, but they wanted me to have something to hold on to when things started to get a little sketchy.


This is a different posting today, but I am in a different frame of mind. Through some personal things that have take place, I find myself questioning respect and the reason for giving it. I guess that the thing that makes me question respect is the make-up of the person that you are respecting. The thing that confuses me a great deal is that I analyze everything these days with a spiritual mindset, and seldom do my questions get answered the way that I want them to. I usually end up with more questions that help to teach better lessons.


Family can often inflict catastrophic damage to the psychological balance of people that they are supposed to love. This can be from church, work, extended, and direct blood related family members. I think that this happens because the boundaries and borders of respect are blurred and moved a great deal. Oddly enough, I tend to respect complete and total strangers more than I respect those that are of absolute importance to me. Taking their kindness and acceptance for granted is something that I have been good at in the past, and am trying to correct with each day. In looking at the effects of my actions, I find that I seldom ever intentionally harm my loved ones. It just happens out of my lack of consideration.


There has been a new occurrence that has crossed my path regarding respect recently. Having a varied combination of friends and family, I am seeing that people tend to harm with disrespect when they feel that they have been slighted. Law enforcement, ministers, and educators are often targets for this kind of hurt and pain, despite their restrictions on acting when they are attacked. It seems that the more trivial the instance that caused the hurt, the more intense and hurtful the attack is that results from it. The simple lesson that was taught to me as a child regarding this is "The Golden Rule" - don't do something that you wouldn't want to be done to you. This is also know as "turn the other cheek."


The hang up that I have with this idea is the status of the "other cheek." The pain and hurt that results from an attack doesn't just go away because you turned the cheek, it presents another cheek to get slapped. I have to be willing to let that other cheek get slapped as well, despite the burning and stinging that still lingers. To make matters worse, when the other cheek is slapped, I have to turn once again. Once a violent reaction to the attack has been started, anger is fought with more anger, and no one can win. I find it hard to give respect when I am getting slapped around, but giving it usually helps to diffuse the situation (though it sometimes takes a while.)


The thing that is lacking in our culture seriously is loving respect. We have respect that comes from fear, idolatry, money, and power, but not respect that comes from love. A loving respect looks past the incidental brushes that come as a result of relationship. Polishing is a natural process that comes from bouncing things against other things, resulting in the smoothing of sharp edges. I just have to look at respect the same way. When someone is rubbing me the wrong way and causing friction in my life, they are helping to smooth some things out that God sees as rough spots. It is important that I am thankful at these times, because God is telling me that He is not done with me yet. I guess that the color of those bright red, burning cheeks just shows off my smile that much more.