Well, Back When I Was a Boy....

Back when I was a boy, things were different. I won't even say that everything was better, but some things certainly were. There was a general sense of decency and decorum that seemed to reign. Sure, there were rude and discourteous people, but they were the minority--a small minority, at that. There was a standard of behavior to which most adhered; those who did not were dealt with in some way, or so it appeared to my young eyes.

One pet peeve in recent years is lack of respect for the traditions regarding wearing of hats. Back when I was a boy, the hats came off when a man (or boy) entered a building, particularly a public building such as a govenment office or school (indoor sporting events being the exception, even years back).  That seems to be no more. I regularly see men conducting business in government buildings wearing their hats. When did that change?  Speaking of hats, unless in a uniform of some sort, military, EMS, fire or police, men removed their hats for the National Anthem and Pledge to the Flag. That's gone also. How hard is it to remove a hat--even if you're having a bad hair day--or a no hair day, the direction I'm headed?

I was recently the Master of Ceremonies for an event in a school gymnasium. When I called the people to their feet for the Pledge, I noticed that most of the men made no move to remove their hats so I announced "Gentlemen, please remove your hats!" At least once I got my way--and a pretty good number of young men heard and saw it. I hope there is a lasting effect.

Moving on to more serious things, back when I was a boy, boys and girls had respect for each other and, though there was natural curiosity toward the opposite sex, there were pretty hard and fast boundaries on acting on that curiosity. Now, there is a phenomenon called "sexting." Anyone not having his head in the sand knows at least something of that. I don't believe there to be any place for it, but the level of it among young people is amazing. One young teenager recently told me that about a dozen of her casual friends had asked her to send naked pictures of herself to them--she did not--however the sheer number who asked floored me. More upsetting yet is the number of kids who do send naked pictures--both girls and boys! It's even worse than that. Casual acquaintances are asking for sex as though it's no different than asking to borrow a pencil in class--and that at young ages.

This is not behavior reserved for older teens, it's happening at preteen ages also! Even those parents who are extremely diligent about monitoring their children's electronic communication are getting blindsided. Worse yet, many parents are not taking steps to stop it; they're ignoring or even denying that their children are participating it it. Yes, I used the word children because that's what they are!

In New York, the law prohibits sexual behavior of any kind with a person under 17 years of age. It's called the age of consent. The law is there to protect kids from thing they are not ready for. Sexual entanglements at young ages mess with the minds. Find a few teenagers who don't keep a private timeline on facebook and follow the drama for a few weeks. You can bet that some of it involves some type of sexual activity.

Yeah, this has been a rant and I'm not going to go into a long discourse on the social fix for these or other evils. I'll just move toward what my wife calls my simple theology:
1)Sin is bad, salvation (and forgiveness) is free--get it
2)If the Bible says "do it," do it; if the Bible says "don't do it," don't do it.
Start there.