Civility

Benjamin and I went out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with his siblings and parents. Benjamin and I arrived first at the restaurant, since we threw this party together last minute, we had a long wait out side the restaurant. Twice I was approached by people who needed money, not Benjamin or anyone else around us, just me. Did I have a hallo glow about me or was I the homeliest one in the bunch(that is probably more likely)? Luckily I had several one dollar bills and was able to share. Last week I was at Home Depot buying a large living room rug, I managed to load that giant sucker on a cart and was making my way out the store, when I was approached by another person needing money. He said he was a contractor out of work and was wanting some money for gas, he said he was willing to do odd jobs around the house. I told him I didn't have any money and wished him well. He said thank you and offered to load my carpet out of good will. It was very kind of him because it was large and heavy. Later when I watched him go back to his car where his wife was sitting I looked in my purse where I was surprised to find a rather large bill. I sighed. Said a prayer asking Heavenly father if he wanted the man to have the money, sadly I was probably hoping he would say keep it. Funny thing, I think I have said that same prayer many times when people have asked me for money and Heavenly Father has never said to keep it. I got in my car circled the parking lot where I found him approaching another person, he was busy so I gave the money to his wife.

In the Book of Mormon in the book of Mosiah it says:
22And if ye ^ajudge the man who putteth up his petition to you for your substance that he perish not, and condemn him, how much more just will be your ^bcondemnation for withholding your substance, which doth not belong to you but to God, to whom also your life ^cbelongeth; and yet ye put up no petition, nor repent of the thing which thou hast done.

I saw this great short video called civility, where it talks about not judging others, what a remarkable eloquent man, I was surprised.

http://lds.org/pages/the-civility-experiment?lang=eng

I think civility is a dying art in America. It is easy not to be civil to people especially if we don't see them face to face. Several years ago Benjamin and I bought a very expensive AC unit from Sears for our house (at least it was expensive to us) and it kept having problems. I had had it. I called up Sears and really gave it to the person on the other end of the phone, it was ugly. I couldn't get it out of my head how bad I was to this person. So the next day I called to apologize. Sears is a huge company, I had to speak to like five different people to finally be connected to the person I had blown up at. When I finally got her on the phone I was emotional with my apology. She didn't know what to say. She said no one had ever called her back after loosing it. Civility is treating people the same way as if you were standing face to face in your living room.

I like the videos where they show people changing for the better it gives me hope.