Wednesday, October 16, 2013
Old Ladies, Lepers and Good Manners
My parents were hopelessly old-fashioned: kissing my mother’s hand after a prolonged absence was as expected as choosing the correct colour of shoes for a social event (“No brown after six”). I did not even bother bringing a friend home whom I suspected would be boorish enough to address my parents by their family name without the appropriate title of Professor or Doctor respectively, because people without manners were rarely given a second chance in my home- they were beyond the Pale. Of course during my hippie years I profoundly rebelled against this slavish attachment to good manners; but now, 40 years later, I am beginning to sound or feel very much like my own dad. I get annoyed when people ask me for favours via email but then don’t bother to say thank you when I spend time answering their query; I love extending hospitality to folk, but when I feel like I am being taken for granted, I deeply resent it; and when people ignore an RSVP on an invitation and then show up I ask myself what sort of boor I have invited.
So now I have outed myself… I must also say that I am
regularly wondering whether this is a generational thing, hence I am exhibiting
“boomer traits” which Xers don’t get, or whether something more profound is involved.
The last example of people ignoring invitations is not a
new one; in fact the Bible tells a parable of somebody throwing a big party and
people coming up with lame excuses why they could not come. Rather than being
grateful those people cannot be bothered; so the host decides to go looking for
people who seem less busy, or more grateful, and he does so amongst the poor.
Since the poor don’t have such a busy social calendar to manage, they are more
available when a social invite comes along; and such invites occur so rarely that
they of course gratefully accept.
While working for the Red Cross I had a parallel
experience. We used to drive sick people from their homes to the hospital and
back: illness does not distinguish between classes, so I ended up rubbing
shoulders with the very rich and the very poor, and incidentally those two
groups look very similar on an ambulance stretcher. Invariably, the richer the
patients, the greater their sense of entitlement: they would expect impeccable
service from us, including often deeds beyond the call of duty, such as feeding
the dog, putting the laundry into the dryer etc. After having “done our duty”
there would often be no tip, not even a word of thanks. The poorer the patient,
on the other hand, the more likely they would apologize for inconveniencing us,
offer us fat tips while at the same time being sorry for not being able to do
more. What is it that distinguishes people, what makes some people generous,
grateful and kind, while others seem to be a pain to be around because they
take your help for granted and do not see any reason to be grateful? Is it a
generational thing? Are those who lived through the recession (are those still
alive actually?) grateful while Generation Y consider itself entitled to life,
wealth and happiness? I think it is more complicated than that.
When my dad was about 55 years old, he was driving his
famous Fiat Cinquecento along the highway when suddenly he lost control of the
vehicle, rolled it and found himself in a ditch, with the car lying on its
roof. People raced to the scene, expecting to pull out a corpse, or at least a
seriously injured man; but dad was absolutely fine, only shaken. He was so
shaken in fact that he made a number of resolutions that day, including
spending more time with his family and going to church more often. During a
split-second he realized that life was a gift and he better live accordingly,
in gratitude and with purpose. Some of us live permanently with that
realization, either because our circumstances remind us of it (say because we
are ill) or because we have trained ourselves to remember it. Others catch a glimpse
of that reality, but normally forget that we have a lot to be grateful for; and
a last group has become callous and thus acts as if life owed something to
them. Even in Africa, where life is highly precarious, some people live with
grateful spirits while others look at every opportunity to screw somebody or
make a cheap buck.
In the New Testament there is a story of Jesus meeting ten
men suffering from leprosy; they all clamour to get healed. So he sends them to
see the priest, and on the way there, all of them are healed. One of them, who happens
to be a Samaritan i.e. a maverick or outcast, comes back to thank Jesus; the
other nine never bothered. Was it just a matter of bad manners? Did they
forget? Somehow for the Samaritan the healing lead to the realization that
health was a gift, and that he should thank the one who gave it back to him.
For the others the healing did not lead to that realization. Similarly all of
us go through life surrounded by small and large miracles: beautiful autumn
days, being preserved during an accident, living with beautiful people. The question
is: do we remember to say thank you? The more we live in a spirit of gratitude,
the more we discover how much we have to be grateful for; the less we do, the
more life seems to suck. So don’t just do it to be polite or to please your
elders; say thank you so your soul learns gratitude. And when the time comes
for the ambulance to pick you up, you will naturally give a big tip…and my
colleagues from the Red Cross will thank you for it. # posted by tino @ Wednesday, October 16, 2013 
