Maybe her job requires her to say those words, which means they aren't authentic. I think perhaps authenticity is overrated. Fashionable, but not that good for us.
Courtesy is a kind of attenuated love. We treat others as we'd wish to be treated, as though we cared for them in the same sort of way we care for ourselves. That isn't as good as love, but it isn't nothing either.
A "thank you" to the bus driver is a reminder to him and to me that he isn't serving me because he's inferior. He is a peer, and if I speak as though his service is a gift, even if I'm on autopilot at the time, I'm acknowledging that relationship.
Paul warned that all kinds of works, without love, "profit me nothing." On the other hand, James points out that love without works isn't very useful either (and extends the analogy to faith). Of the two, I think that suppressing the moment's grouchiness to extend a little courtesy shows at least a little love of the right thing and of a proper relationship between us. It isn't love of the person (I don't always know him from Adam's off ox), but it is related to it; a reaching towards it. So long as he's not actively trying to deceive, there's more hope for the apathetic person who acts rightly than for the benign person who doesn't act.
True, each culture has its own norms of courtesy, which can make interactions unpleasant. Most of us leave the road uncluttered for cars and bicycles, but some walk in the street by preference: That's what everybody does back home where cars are infrequent. OK, some do it to annoy the man...
Sometimes little courtesies can have surprising impact. A recent news story about Mandela told of a time when a white clergyman was visiting Nelson's mother and doffed his hat to her--a white man showing courtesy to a black woman. It made an impression on the little boy.
I vote for courtesy: for a smile when you don't feel like it and for letting the weaker go first and for leaving the pennies on the sidewalk for the children to pick up. If you don't want attenuated love, but only authentic emotion, then beware of my sore shoulder. I'm feeling grouchy.
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Over at Grim's place, we're reading a book just published by Lars Walker called "Troll Valley." One of the parts I enjoyed was an exposition towards the end about the tension between lawlessness and Pharisiacal law-mongering. The character argues that Christ excoriated the Pharisees while more or less giving up on the Sadducees altogether. The Pharisees were getting it wrong, but were at least trying. They "put a hedge around the law," to show how much they loved the law. But "God gave the Law to teach an attitude of the heart, but this thick hedge kept them so far from the Law that they couldn't learn the lesson. Instead the Law became an occasion of pride, since the thousand little laws were so much easier to keep than the great Law."
Small, righteous acts reinforce the heart, as long as they're not so automated or fake as to be wholly dead. Yes, it would be nice if we always attained the great Law of perfectly wide-awake, profound, sincere love in all our daily contacts, but since we're not there this side of Heaven, it's good at least to aim at a habit of ordinary warm courtesies. They can remind us to treat each other as souls not as objects, and to remind us of our greater duties.
I was so amazed by the idea that I went over to check if it was as you said.
And commented, of course.
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