hmmm…..
It’s hard to ignore. It’s about Herman Cain and Joe Paterno. It’s made the news for days now: I am talking about sexual abuse. Cain and Paterno have been accused, not convicted, so we have to be careful about condemning them.
Right about now, I could easily go into a righteous tirade about the harm sexual abuse does and the life long damage it incurs. I could lament the lost innocence of youth and the devastation of careers. I could talk about the harm done when accomplices let the crime go unnoticed. I could write about all of that and I would be right, don’t you agree?
But I usually don’t go there and I won’t today. What I would like to write about is the respect we do or don’t have for those around us. Respect involves all sorts of behavior and misbehavior. It is a trait that our country is founded on; I believe we can all agree on that.
Respect involves treating one another with dignity, kindness and acceptance. It requires a somewhat open mind and the willingness to not always have it our way. Some people call it “Christian”; as if we have a franchise on the virtue. But that’s not really true, for Jews and Muslims and all sort of other faiths practice respect, too.
Abuse of any kind is not OK. Respect is appropriate in any situation. Let’s be respectful of one another. Surely that will prevail.
hmmm….,.
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