Is it Christian?

This is a article I originally posted on my yahoo account, but felt I needed to place it here as well.

Interesting thing happened to me a couple weeks ago, and it took me a while to generate a blog to it.

I made my usual act of a gentleman and opened the door for a woman and her husband. She smiled and said that that was a Christian thing for me to do for them. Without really even thinking about it, I responded with, "Well, you know how us Jews are, rude and obnoxious and all."

Over my life, I have heard that comment more often than I like. It makes no sense. Are there really Christians (or any other religion for that matter) that honestly think that the act of being kind or polite is unique to THEM alone? If so, then that only tells me that they are sadly disillusioned.

I do things like open doors, complement people and help when I can because that is the person I was brought up to be. I have a very good mother, and I think she brought me up very well. How is this a trait that any religion feels it has a monopoly on? Do these people really categorize people this way, where somewhere in the back of the grey paste that makes up their brain, they think that only Christians are capable of acts of goodness? If so, what is in their file about Jews? Are we seen as money hoarding rats with horns? How about Islamics or Buddhists?

In closing, it is sad that we have done this to ourselves, and things, I fear, are only going to get worse. Take Islam, for example... Since 9/11 people have suddenly started grouping all Islamics in the same category... as radicals, when nothing could be further from the truth. I have known several Muslims in my life, and they are all great people. Would this woman I helped see, in the back of her mind, all Muslims as being "Ragheads with bombs taped to them", as one of my more 'enlightened' acquaintances said once. Sadly, I am afraid she might.

Maybe the thing we need to do is, instead of teaching the differences between us, teach the similarities between us. Why we are all alike, not different. After all... in the dark we are all the same.

As I left the Carl’s Jr., I had the honor of holding the door open for her and her husband once again. She would not look at me, did not even 'Thank you', but her husband nodded at me, grinning. Wonder what the conversation was like at their table.

I will end this with two of my favorite quotes:

"Character is knowing the good,
loving the good and doing the good."
— Thomas Lickona

"Character is what you are in the dark."
— Rev. Dwight Moody