Line upon Line

While I was stocking shelves at the Bishop’s Storehouse, a manager approached me and inquired about my background. When I told him I practiced law and taught college, he said, “I wish we had something more suited to you.”

His statement lingered. It even stung a bit. Implied in his well-meaning lament was the notion that somehow my training and profession placed me above the tasks of the storehouse. I didn’t feel that way at all. As I retrieved product for the shelves, I thought of the marvelous manifestation of priesthood keys in each food order.

Wise bishops, as shepherds in Zion, had filled a need for each needy person or family. Countless volunteers had grown, packaged and distributed the food, while others, including the manager, worked tirelessly to make the storehouse the literal fulfillment of the Lord’s charge to “lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees” (Doctrine and Covenants 81:5).

Far From Snug Cribs

No one really knows the trials and background of his neighbor. We have all come far from snug cribs. Each of us has a story to tell, a lesson to learn and a life to live.

The well-meaning manager could not have known that I was once needy. At sixteen, my mother’s illness forced me to the streets. At that low point of my life, I begged change in downtown Los Angeles and used the money to wolf down a thirty-five cent McDonald’s hamburger. Oh, that I had been a member of the Church and could have accessed the sacred Bishop’s Storehouse during those difficult days!

Basic Respect

The manager’s “more suited to you” statement caused me to ponder the principle of respect. It doesn’t take three eyes to see that society lacks basic respect for things once held in high esteem.

Police officers, parents, and even crossing guards are often derided, not praised and respected. Worse, common courtesy such as “thank you” and “yes, ma’am” are anachronisms of a bygone era.

In my parents’ generation, courtesy was taught and lived. Respect for authority was the rule, not the exception, and chivalry wasn’t dead.

The root cause of disrespect is the lack of self-respect. To the extent God is viewed as a distant, unapproachable nothingness, self takes center stage as the do-anything-marionette on the world’s manipulative strings.

Without respect for deity, self-respect blows with the winds of opinion and pop-culture. As some non-believers follow after their own lusts, “they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears” (2 Tim. 4:3). Those “itching ears” are too irritated to listen to more polite speech, let alone to return it.

Respect for authority, like common courtesy, flows from the Golden Rule. When we treat others as we want to be treated, our demeanor fits Sunday dress every day of the week. But there is a danger. When misapplied, the halo of respect can slip into a noose of class worship.

Class Worship

I have heard medical staff use their employer’s title a substitute for real names: “Doctor is busy,” they tell patients seeking to schedule a near-date appointment; as if the title actually identified the person. When I hear this, I retort, “Lawyer is busy too, but can Fred see me today or not?”

For you wonderful doctors, professors, accountants, educators and engineers with letters after your name, please don’t allow titles to go to your head. Titles do not define you. There is no justification for being “distinguished by ranks” (3 Ne. 6:12).

Remember President Faust’s counsel to President Uchtdorf, a new general authority: “Dieter, be thankful for this (praise), but don’t you ever inhale it” (President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Pride and the Priesthood,” Ensign, Nov. 2010).