Pet Peeves

Do you have a pet peeve? I do. Matter of fact I have a lot of them. Some of them make me sound so paranoid that I would not post them on this site. My kids say that I am CDO—that’s OCD in its proper alphabetical order. I think they say that because in StrengthFinders I am a top five Arranger. I am regularly doing things like straightening pictures on the wall, making sure that things are symmetrical and adjusting lamp shades. Other things that bother me: breadcrumbs or lint on the front of shirts or blouses, dirty windshields, people who tell me they have a good idea when it is not a good idea until it works, not using an apostrophe properly (particularly in the plural of a last name—i.e., I saw the Smith’s today), shirt collars not straight on the back of the neck, people who use I, my, me and mine instead of we, us, and our, and on and on.

I feel like I am baring my soul here by sharing some of my pet peeves. I am basically a transparent person who also has a top-five Self Confidence in StrengthFinders, so I can handle sharing some soul secrets. So here is another pet peeve: a church bulletin or a printed program (wedding, funeral, graduation, etc) that lists people on program something like this: Winthrop Luper, Elmira Dothan, Dr.  Bartholomew Pierce, and Samuel Hogan. Notice anything wrong? One person has a title while the others do not. Now that probably does not bother many people, but it really bothers me.

Everyone is equally important, so everyone should be treated in the same manner. If you are going to give one person in the program a title, then you must give titles to all of them. Makes sense to me!

I think the worst offenders of this are churches, and I will go so far to say that too many pastors are very proud to boast of their “doctorate” before or after their names. Our pastor, who has a PhD, asks to be called “Pastor David,” not Dr. Howard. I like that.

Everybody doesn’t have a bold title like “Doctor” or “Professor,” but everyone has the distinction of being a creation of God. Every person’s face into which we have ever gazed is one made in the image of God. As I have traveled internationally for the past 40+ years I have looked into many interesting faces,  thinking, Wow! God made that face! It is absolutely amazing that apart from identical twins, no two faces are exactly the same. Even those people who do very nasty things in our world are ones who the Heavenly Father loves just like you and me. God doesn’t show partiality.

Look around you each day and pay attention to faces. God created them all. Our responsibility is clear: to love the Lord my God with all my heart and to love my neighbor (ALL those faces) as I love myself.