BEWARE THE NEW VARIANT!

We are living amidst a new pandemic, far worse than Covid, and one neither the government nor the medical authorities are talking about. This one doesn't eat away at your body; it destroys the soul. We're in the middle of a rudeness epidemic. You see it all around you. Wave someone ahead trying to enter the highway from a side entrance, but don't expect a return "thank you" wave. To say nothing of other drivers who cut you off.

Then there's those people on Facebook asking for their birthday that funds be donated to a favorite charity. You do it, but when you write to them...no response. I guess charity stays at home.

Someone holding the door for you? Come on! That went out with the hula hoop.

Don't get me wrong. It's not like there are no people offering random acts of kindness. It's just that the rude ones seem to be in the ascendancy. I was having lunch the other day with my wife, and observed a man at a nearby table who was seemingly neglecting his spouse/date, absorbed in his cell phone. Rude!

Perhaps it's the information overload. So many messages bombarding us, including hordes of people trying to steal their way into our identities. So keeping to one's self, ignoring others, makes a certain sense. Until I thought of the biblical story of the ten lepers Jesus cleansed. Only one returned to say thank you, leaving Our Lord to wonder at the rudeness of rest. "Where are the other nine?" Come to think of it, I don't believe they had information overload 2,000 years ago. So maybe the rudeness is not just a passing illness

God ought to just send another flood and wipe all the evil away, so we could start fresh. And remind people of the magic words: please and thank you.