Recently my family and I went out to the western part of our beautiful country and visited several US National parks. We borrowed a motor home so we stayed in campgrounds along the way. One of the parks we stayed at had an excellent bath house facility, only a couple months old. Now I would be shocked if any of you could say you’ve never been in a bathroom with stuff scrawled on the sides of the stalls. I know I’ve seen many MANY messages there. Probably the majority of these messages fall into three broad categories, 1) ‘So and so was here’, b) ‘For a good time call …’ and c) ‘So and so is a xxxxx’ All of these things bother me because they constitute destruction of property. But what I saw in this building bothered me even more.

The sides of the stalls were recycled plastic material. Very nice, quiet, impossible to scratch the paint off because the color goes straight through, simple to clean, and likely just a nice way to keep a few hundred milk jugs out of the landfill. But you can scratch into the surface with your pocket knife. So what do you suppose I find there? I found both WWJD and ‘What Would Jesus Do’ scratched into the side as well as the Jesus Fish. Whether you agree with the Gospel as told in the Bible or not, if people were really trying to spread it this is not the way to do so! Destruction of property is most certainly NOT what Jesus would do! Perhaps you could argue the carvers were counterfeits trying to make others look bad but there were neither swear words nor anything written in a derogatory manner. The simple fact that it was there is the issue. The fact that people who follow someone who preaches love, care, and respect would deface others property is the problem. In other words, those trying to do a good thing are doing a bad thing.

Suppose you were on a tug-of-war team. You and 9 of your biggest and strongest buddies are pulling on the rope for all you are worth. Well almost all of them are, instead of pulling, one guy is tickling the guy ahead of him. So not only is he not pulling for the team he’s negated the guy ahead of him as well. Doesn’t make any sense does it?

Recently I discovered that a friend of mine had engaged a speaker for his users group. Others in the group happen not to like this speaker and nixed his presentation. As a result of the conflict my friend resigned all his positions with his local LUG and with COMMON. It’s very sad to see this happening.

Then very recently on our system’s most popular email list a thread was very nearly renamed the ‘Axxxx vs Jxx flame war.’Two bright individuals both of whom I know personally that do not agree. Had they been face to face it might have been interesting to watch the sparks fly, but on the list I’m not sure if the entire thread was helpful.

Its human nature that there will be conflicts, that much is a fact. Sometimes, though I wonder if we consider our actions before we take them. Do our intended good actions turn out to be negative in the final tally? The only way to never make a mistake is to not do anything at all but surely that’s the worst decision. Doing nothing is never the right answer.

I certainly can’t change everyone’s mind. I probably won’t get anyone to call anyone and apologize. I may not be able to get all the people on this tug-o-war team to pull hard in the same direction but if I can get people thinking about what they are doing ‘For’ the System i community maybe at least a few will become purveyors of positive thought and toss their weight to the rope.

Do you know who you are?

- DrF