BEING NICE

The other day our youngest grandson, four-year-old Carter, came home from school and told his mom that they had a new girl in class. Her name was Talia. “She doesn’t speak English,” he said, “she only speaks Arabic. I don’t speak Arabic so we just have to be nice to each other.”

The wisdom of little children: we just have to be nice to each other! Somehow, somewhere along the line these past few years we adults seemed to have lost the notion that to live in this world we do need to be nice to each other. What I have heard over and over and over again, ad nauseam, from our elected leaders on down, is just the opposite – and they take pride in their language to boot.

My guess is that Jesus would be appalled were he to walk our highways and byways. No, no guess involved: Jesus would be appalled, IS appalled. There are no exceptions, ands, ifs or buts about it. If four-year-olds know that they need to be nice to one another to live in this world, why have we adults forgotten that basic truth of basic civility? And why do we allow our elected leaders to get away with such conduct especially when they are supposed to be our shining examples of civility in public discourse?

The more basic question, of course, is on the very personal level: our own public and even private discourse. Have we become less civil? Have we lost the ability to be nice to those with whom we honestly disagree, with whom we do not understand? Being nice does not mean that we agree with the other’s point of view. But it does mean that we do not degenerate into calling the other names that belittle that person.

When we put the shoe on our own foot and reflect on how we would feel if someone belittled us because of our politics or race or skin color or sexual orientation, we soon realize the depth of hurt those words inflict. The old adage that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” is a lie. Words hurt deeply and sometimes forever, long after the bones have been healed.

What is worse, we can’t take those words back. They are indelibly marked on the soul of the one we hurt and are just as indelibly marked on our soul when others verbally abuse us. We all learned that back when we were Carter’s age, when someone called us names that hurt us. Our response, if you are like me, was to start to cry if those words hurt so deeply and, sadly, to retaliate with our own name-calling. We may have thought that we had gotten even, but we only made the situation worse.

We know all that. We’ve know all that since we were Carter’s age. We are reminded of it when we hear others verbally abuse another and, even more, when we are verbally abused ourselves. I’m proud of my grandson for reminding me of something I have known all along, reminding me to always be nice to everyone. It’s the only way to live.