Indictment on Humanity

Exactly one week ago today I had a very hostile and negative encounter with a customer at the cigar shop where I am employed.  Upon greeting the customer, he looked at me and continued going about his merry way without so much as an acknowledgement of my existence.  Upon approaching the customer, he asked what exactly my problem was and what did I want from him?  First I was shocked by the gall and fortitude this man exhibited.  As best I could, I explained my desire of the same courtesy offered to me as I was extending to him.  His response was classic, and I quote, "I heard you but was ignoring you.  Deal with it!"  The situation only went further south after that.  Needless to say, I am appalled by the rudeness of humanity-at-large as represented through this man.  Is this the sorry state of affairs we as a society have let ourselves degrade to become?  Have we become so compartmentalized in selfishness we don't know any better in how to treat our fellow man?  God forbid I section myself off from society to the point I spew toxic dysfunction toward others around me?  Spiritually I believe we all were made for community.  In other words, we need one another in order to become well-rounded, contributing members of the human race and in the global community in which we live and function.  John Donne wrote many centuries ago,
"No man is an island entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
I challenge myself and those who I come in contact with to treat others the way I (we) want to be treated.  By doing so I will leave heaping coals of burning guilt on the heads of those who are out of line in the treatment of our fellow man.  There is no excuse in treating someone ill when we are created in the image of our Heavenly Father.  I treat myself ill if I treat someone else horribly or less than human.

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