The Golden Rule

  Whatever happened to common courtesy?

  More ideas come to me while standing in line at Wal-Mart than I’d like to admit, and the idea for this week’s column is no exception.  Sunday evening, while standing in line at register seventeen, I was pushed over the edge.

  There were three or four shoppers in front of me.  All of us—except for the family of six directly in front of me—were following the rules.  We all had ten items or less.  I had two.  A package of tortillas and a package of blueberry turnovers.

  The family of six, apparently just wrapping up their annual trip to the grocery store, had a full basket.  Piles and piles of food and diapers, chips and dips, potting soil and pregnancy tests, Easter baskets from the clearance racks.  And coupons for everything.

  Their basket was bursting at its welded-wire seams.  Its wheels were quivering and locking up as the pack of mules pulled it creaking toward the register.  A crew of stock-boys had to bring in a ladder to unload it.

  In a more courteous day and age, they would have seen me behind them with my two items, given the mules’ reins a yank, and offered to let me go ahead of them.  I could’ve been out the door before the guys with the ladder arrived.  But no.  As the line behind me grew, I stood patiently—in the express lane with my two items —and waited for this carnival to move on to the next town.

  It’s not just at the supermarket that we have seen this rampant decline in common courtesy, it’s everywhere.  It’s on our city streets, and on airplanes, and in movie theaters.

  Have you ever pulled up to a four-way stop at precisely the same moment another driver does?  You both have to sit there until one of you waves the other driver along.  That’s courtesy.  Anything that you do while driving that requires a wave is courteous.  And usually you get a wave back.  But most of us are so dehumanized by road rage that we rarely extend these simple courtesies anymore.

  On Saturday, we lost one of the greatest spiritual leaders our generation has ever known.  If Pope John Paul II’s lifelong message could be broken down to a simple phrase, it would be “be courteous to one another.”  Like all spiritual figures, he devoted his life to enriching ours, to teaching us to live in harmony with one another.   As the leader of 1.7 billion Catholics for over 25 years, the impression that he left should and will be a lasting one.

  Courtesy is at the heart of the Golden Rule.  It is about empathy and compassion and righteousness.  Spend some time this weekend paying attention to the little things you can do to make things better for those around you. 

 -From Pulse
   April 7, 2005