Manners Make Others Feel Competent and at Home
Once upon a time manners were so important that people who rarely attended formal affairs feared they would commit a major social faux pas if they used the wrong fork or spoon. On those occasions they felt out of place. A major responsibility of a host or hostess and their children—yes, and even every guest—is to help people feel right at home. Our words, actions, and attitudes should never cause another person to feel out of place or unwanted.
Here is a story about a time several years ago when Ray and I felt out of place. We were trying to navigate unfamiliar toll booths. To be sure, Ray and I have paid tolls in our day, including a trip or two across this toll bridge at New Harmony, Indiana.
Early in our marriage, we used Kentucky toll roads fairly regularly while traveling often between Lexington, Kentucky, and our parents’ homes in Ashland City and Columbia, Tennessee.
Toll booths were cash-only deals back then. Ray and I remember the weekend we spent our cash down so low that we didn’t have the $1.20 we needed to get back home. We knew no such thing as paying a toll with a credit card. The only plastic we had back then were a Sears card and one from Gulf Oil. That weekend we solved the $1.20 dilemma by taking a longer backroad route thus avoiding having to borrow a little cash from our folks.
However, by the time we had our out-of-place experience, taking those Kentucky toll roads had been decades ago and toll roads were a novelty to us.
While on a trip, we drove up to a toll booth and both of us read the signs. We were flummoxed. None of the signs seemed to fit our situation. We had already upset drivers behind us at a previous booth because we didn’t know which lane to get in. For the third time during that trip, here we were again having toll booth troubles.
Ray pulled up to a booth that had an attendant. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. The friendly attendant replied in a heavy accent, “Very simple — you give me money; I let you go.”
It was nice to be treated kindly while we were having an out-of-place experience. It is easy to challenge, condemn, criticize, question, and be frustrated with people who don’t seem to “get it.” Sometimes those people are simply out of their element. Perhaps someone is socially inexperienced. Perhaps a young person hasn’t matured in a certain area yet.
Good manners make people who feel out of place feel welcome, wanted, and at home. Bad manners make them feel like they don’t measure up.
Sometimes when we are thinking, “How very simple,” another person is thinking something else entirely. A person with good manners encourages the fainthearted, helps the weak, and is patient with everyone.
We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly,
encourage the fainthearted, help the weak,
be patient with everyone.
1 Thessalonians 5:14