Shocked again. Sunday I saw a man and woman with a small boy walk out of a
Denny's without paying. What I saw today put spoiled icing on the rotten
cake. Coming to a red light at a busy intersection I was watching young
people with containers going from car to car collecting money for the Jimmy
Fund - Cancer Research. People were putting their hands out the window with
cash as the collectors walked to their cars. Catty-cornered across the
intersection from me a window came down, a hand came out which then flicked
cigarette ashes into the container as it neared. After the light turned
and I could proceed I took special note to see the scumbag. It was a
teenage girl. I feel very sorry for the man that marries her. Without a
conversion experience this will without a doubt be someone her high school
senior class should vote to be the one destined for a life of misery. Sorry
about the derogatory term. I thought about replacing it with something less
offensive. I asked myself what Jesus would have said. Then I remembered
Matthew 23 and decided it was right to retain the word.

Is a little respect too much to ask? In Romans 12:10 Paul exhorts us to
honor others. He even goes so far as to tell us to prefer others over
ourselves. In Philippians Paul encourages us to adopt an attitude of
humility and to labor to do all we can to advance others. One of my favor
pictures of Jesus is found in Mark 1 where Jesus reaches out and touches a
leper while the man was still a leper. True respect for self can only be
real when it is a reflection of our treatment of those about us.