respect

I'm writing to you from a seat on the Metra train in Chicago on my way to my PCM (Practical Christian Ministry) where I am a Jr. High youth leader in a church in Schaumburg, IL (click here to read a previous post about my PCM). I love working in this ministry every week, but the travel is just very time consuming. This is the second week in a row that I have gone really early so that I can work on the youth group's website.

So on this train ride every week I find myself spending alot of time listening to my iPod, but at the same time observing people on the train. I almost said that I enjoy observing people, but I guess I don't particularly enjoy it, I just find myself doing it alot. Although many times I do get enjoyment out of it just because people are really amusing to watch sometimes.

I just got on the train about 15 minutes ago, and I'm facing this man who looks like your typical city worker. He has his laptop bag, newspaper, 2 big cans of Miller Draft (the beverage of choice for many men taking the train on their way home from their job). I was watching as he was getting himself situated in his seat, and I usually notice things about people that are different from me. So the first thing I noticed was that 1. after he opened his can of beer he broke the tab off the can and threw it on the floor. After he did this I was a bit more intrigued to continue watching him. LOL, I know this post is sounding very stalkerish, but just bear with me. After that 2. he grabbed his newspaper and there was a sticker on the front page so he took that off and literally just put it on the train window. Following this 3. he took out a tissue, blew his nose and then to get rid of it he stuck it in between the train wall and his seat.

Now, I don't know what you would've thought about this, but anytime that I see someone just blatantly litter, vandalize or disrespect someone else's property I can't help but just shake my head. Sometimes I'm even in disbelief of how people treat things, and I mostly see it done to public property, but it urgs (not sure if thats a word) me even more when it is done to stuff that is owned by someone.

Actually, after thinking about this more, I guess what really urgs (see, I used it again in a sentence) me is when people are so blatant about it. This guy on the train just did it with a bunch of people around, and acted like it was his daily routine and that it was no big deal. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was his daily routine, because many times I see the same people on the train every week, and I'll observe them and they eat and drink the same things every week, and many times even sit with the same people. So I could easily imagine this guy taking the train at the same time everyday, sitting in the same seat, drinking the same Miller Draft beer, reading the same newspaper and putting the sticker on the window everyday.

Then again, we are creatures of habit, that doesn't make littering, or vandalizing the right thing to do, but if you do a sin once then it just becomes easier and easier to come back to that sin and not think that much about it.

It could go back to the way we were raised though. I was raised to always respect other people's property, and that included public property. I'm not getting on my high horse and saying I'm better than anyone else, but that is just how I was raised. Some people might have been raised by their parents to not have respect for people's property, and this might not have been blatant on the parent's part, but the kid sees their parent doing this, and then thinks it is okay.

This causes me to think even more about how very important it is to raise my kids the way that I believe is biblically correct. I actually think about this quite often (click here to read my previous post on parenting/raising children) and it often times scares me to think about how much influence I can have on a human life. Let me just say that I am writing this with the assumption that I am going to have kids, which I probably shouldn't assume so easily, but it is still something that I should think about. I mean, it can't hurt to think about it, right?

So this post has quickly gone from respect for others to parenting. Anyways, that is another post for another day, and I'm becoming very very long winded, so I'm going to shut up, and let you think about these words.

Do you ever observe people and just shake your head in disbelief? Do you think about parenting, whether you have kids or not? It is an interesting thing to think about. Comments please.

kids these days