Respect

Sitting here in God’s Waiting Room, the word RESPECT keeps flying around and bouncing off the walls. It might result from the sometimes outrageous noise in the background emitting from news channels on the TV.

The Oxford Dictionary defines RESPECT when used as a noun, “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements:”

RESPECT in most households starts at the very beginning of childhood and continues for a lifetime. We passed these lessons on to the next generation, or at least they should be.

Lesson number one is RESPECT for right and wrong. Make the incorrect decision, and there will be consequences to pay, usually a scolding or perhaps a little hand pat to the posterior.

Lesson number one leads directly to lesson number two: RESPECT for the person administering the consequences.

We have now established a life pattern most people live with and embrace. RESPECT for parents, elders, siblings, neighbors, school teachers, police officers, the law, other people’s opinions, our country, our flag, the military, people of authority, and the institutions they represent.

These institutions include places of worship, schools, businesses, and local and state government. At the top of that list is the United States Congress.

All have a dress code, spoken or unspoken. Most schools have a stated dress code, and signs such as “no shorts or shoes” appear on the doors of some stores. Businesses have dress codes for their employees, from the mechanics in auto dealerships to the tellers in banks. Law enforcement has strict dress codes, as does our outstanding military. Places of worship have dress codes for their clergy.

There are those in our society who dislike dress code requirements; however, they have learned to live with them as they demonstrate RESPECT for the individual and the institution he or she represents. To not comply is DISRESPECTFUL It shows an individual feels they are more important than the institution and what it represents.

They taught us the primary list of RESPECT starts with God, then Country, Family, and, at the very bottom, Self. To disrespect any of these is to have no self-respect.

If the lack of self-respect is absent, others will have no respect for that person. Sympathy, maybe, but no respect.

Below God and Country comes the highest government institution in the land, Congress. Consisting of 535 elected people, Congress is the mechanism that governs our land. These 100 Senators and 435 Congressmen/women represent various areas of our great country and come together with a wide set of opinions and ideas. Their job is to work with each other to reach conclusions that are good for the country. Well, at least that is what the Constitution says.

The noise coming from the TV centers on a fellow named John Fetterman. In the last election, Mr. Fetterman was elected as the new US Senator from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He represents Pennsylvania along with Senior Senator Robert “Bob” Casey.

It is easy to distinguish between the two men: Sen. Casey wears a suit, and Sen. Fetterman dresses like a bum on the beach.

According to NBC News–Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., on Wednesday offered to "save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week" if House Republicans "stop trying to shut our government down.”

Mr. Fetterman, why should the Republicans, or anyone else, RESPECT your opinion when you have no RESPECT for the honored position you were elected to serve, implicating you have no RESPECT for Congress or what the institution represents, including the Constitution calling for debate rather than theatrical political tricks?

If you truly want someone to RESPECT your opinion or you, wear a suit or go home and let someone who RESPECTS your political party, our country, and Congress serve.

Just sayin’.

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