I love to read. Newspapers, magazines, books. Lots and lots of books.

Now that the class I teach has ended for the year, I’ll have a chance to catch up on some recreational reading.

But there’s one book in particular I will not be reading. Not because my own county library has a wait list. Not because more than 2,000 people are already on the Palm Beach County library wait list for it. Not even because the Brevard County library system has banned the book.

The book I will not be reading is Fifty Shades of Grey. Rather than explain why, I’m asking you to check out the following link. Dannah Gresh has explained it so much better than I ever could.

Check the link below and read her post for your own sake. Then tweet it, post it, blog about it …for the sake of those you love.

http://www.purefreedom.org/blog/?p=320

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8 NIV).

During this past week, I either watched or learned of the following:

• A friend’s husband removed political bumper stickers from the family car because of safety concerns for his wife and children.

• A politically active local group is seeking to have a newspaper columnist fired because of her published opinions.

• A friend on Facebook referred to a U.S. Senator as a “radical nut cake” simply because she disagreed with her politics.

• A patient called a doctor’s receptionist and aggressively berated her because she could not immediately connect him to the doctor (who was with another patient at that time).

• A mother gave her son a stun gun to take to school to defend himself against bullying tormentors.

Have we lost our civility as a society? Is this simply a matter of disagreement, or is something more profound at stake?

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “There can be no high civility without a deep morality.” Whatever your religious or spiritual persuasion, no one can doubt the correlation between declining civility and our culture’s declining morality. Civility is given lip service, if it’s considered at all. When it’s claimed in the name of taking the high road, it lasts for less time than an ice cream cone on a summer afternoon in Florida.

Those who disagree often attack each other with such vehemence that the issue deteriorates from mere disagreement to an all-out war. Battle lines are drawn. Sides are chosen. Intelligent discussion and debate are sacrificed on the altars of passion and pride.

The rhyme, “Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me,” is one of the biggest lies perpetuated on children. Words do cause harm. Names can crush a spirit and inflict injuries that may not be physical, but are still life-altering. Worse, name-calling is rarely the last stop. It’s a short distance from cruel words to vicious actions. From a put-down to a knock-out. From slurs to stun guns.

The Bible tells us, “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of…. everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken.  For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned” (Matthew 12:34, 36-37).

I’m reminded of the classic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde. The ugliness of Dorian’s soul is unseen in his face, but reflected in his deteriorating portrait. You and I don’t have the option of restricting our ugliness to a hidden portrait. Like it or not, our words reveal what is tucked away in our minds. As a jostled glass spills its contents, so our lips spill the contents of our hearts.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy said, “So let us begin anew – remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof.” Are we ready to prove the sincerity of our civility? I hope so. If not, we will have lost more than our manners…we will have lost our humanity.

What have your words indicated about the contents of your heart this week?

There’s a new fad circulating on a few social media sites. It’s a guessing game “Age Test” that offers photos of items that have fallen out of use and into obscurity. Photos of a roller-skate key, a sardine can key, an eight-track player, even drive-in movie theater car speakers have popped up on Facebook, Pinterest, and other sites.

While these objects – only forty or fifty years old – have passed into history, I’m reminded of predictions made fifty years ago regarding the twenty-first century. Remember the promise of a paperless workspace? Computers that fit in the palm of your hand? I remember watching Star Trek episodes in the 1960s in which the show’s characters carried on conversations with computers and wondered how that could ever be possible in my lifetime.

But some of these predictions have already been fulfilled. We not only speak on smartphones, we speak to them…and they speak back! Computer chips the size of a fingernail contain information that would fill an entire library. The paperless workspace? Not so much…yet. But it’s coming.

An innovation you may not have heard of yet is the flexible robot. Remember playing with Gumby? This robot is shaped like Gumby, with a white, soft body. Harvard scientists studied animals that did not have hard skeletons in order to create a five-inch long robot made of rubber.

The flexible robot is able to crawl, slide, and squeeze through tight spaces, controlled by air pumped into, or released from, its four legs.

Science has always promised us a better life through pioneering inventions. But no matter how innovative the products, they are limited to slight improvements for a life that is temporary, no matter how hard we try to make it otherwise.

God has also made promises to us – promises that will not disappoint because they are related to a life that will last forever. Promises that help us cope with this temporary life while keeping an eternal perspective. Promises based on His unchanging nature and His glorious ways.

It’s fun to remember old items that recall simpler times. It’s exciting to consider new inventions that promise comfort and ease. But we should never get so comfortable that we begin to believe this is all there is to life. “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (I Corinthians 2:9).

There’s an even better life coming!

What invention do you wish for that would make life better?