PASTOR'S PERSEPCTIVES: MISS MANNERS SPEAKS OUT ON MORALITY

June is here and finally it is time for summer vacations to begin. I have one planned and I am really looking forward to it.

If you visit the travel section at cnn.com, you may still be able to participate in an ongoing "quick poll" asking the question: When traveling, what have you ever stolen from a hotel room?" At the time of this writing, 1,584 respondents had logged in and more than half (58 percent) said they had never taken anything from a hotel room. I suppose that should be heartening news. Twelve percent of the respondents admitted to having taken glasses or ashtrays from hotels and a whopping 29 percent confessed to stealing towels and linens.

Do you recall the story of the college football team from North Texas who in November 1996 lost the Big West Conference game to Utah State 21-13? After the game, a manager from a motel where the team had been staying showed up with police and forced the players to unpack the bus. Nearly $1,400 worth of motel property was unloaded from the baggage compartment, including stolen towels, bath mats, blankets, pillows and a videocassette recorder.

Now I ask you: What is wrong with kids today? William Willimon, a United Methodist scholar and professor at Duke University, recently asked that question of a student on his campus and he reported that the young man replied, "The problem with our generation is that we were raised by your generation!" That may very well be an appropriate reply to the question as we consider the failure of character and social ills of our contemporary culture.

On the last Wednesday of May, a symposium addressing the moral roots of our social ills was held at the Chicago Divinity School. Among the legislators and theologians who were invited to the symposium was a newspaper columnist who has claimed her fame by giving advice about etiquette.

Judith Martin, known as Miss Manners, addressed the austere gathering of theorists and told them that the main problem with the country today is that, "too many Americans view morality as a threat to freedom, rather than its essential guarantor ... people have retreated from the use of etiquette and civil manners in confronting negative behaviors, expecting instead that law will solve such problems."

Another conclusion of the symposium was that there is no doubt that our "intense individualism has created a total disregard for the belongings and the lives of others. We suffer from a drastic and deep spiritual need for community."

I think that Miss Manners may well be onto something. This is much more than a need to say "please" and "thank you" or refrain from a little selective pilfering. We cannot take basic and simple respect for one another for granted anymore in our culture. If you doubt that for a moment, get distracted in traffic for a moment and cut someone off inadvertently and see if you don't get an animated, if not vulgar, response. I was in a store the other day and a man felt that a woman nearby was waited on before him. The interchange that resulted between the two turned into one threatening to follow the other home and engage in gun play. True, such occurrences are rare but not as rare as they used to be, I don't think.

It might seem trite but I wonder if a return to basics isn't exactly what we need. Say "please" and "thank you" when it is appropriate and for goodness sake, don't steal the towels from your hotel room while you are on vacation. Perhaps the whole matter would be much improved if more people were stealing the Bibles from the night stand instead of the ashtrays!

The Rev. Scott c. Lose is senior pastor of New McKendree United Methodist Church, 209 High St.. in Jackson.