I am so grateful for the No Smoking provisions in meeting places, hotels, shopping areas, airplanes and other public locations that people gather.
I remember the days when smoking was allowed on airplanes in the US and those who didn’t smoke had to choose between riding the plane and inhaling the poisonous obnoxious fumes or not fly at all, which was a difficult choice to make if one needed to be somewhere quickly. It seemed like there was no choice at all, really, but to breathe the gross stuff and do one’s best to survive.
As a majority of people have come to realize the evils of smoking, directly or indirectly, public opinion, in North America anyway, has shifted to the side of favoring smoke-free environments, and thus we have the blessing we presently enjoy of clean air that was nowhere to be found not too many years ago.
Recently, I was pondering other evils humanity will eventually recognize as unacceptable public behavior.
For example, what about the ugly and offensive forms of anger at one’s neighbor or vitriol poured over the media? They can be more deadly than nicotine.
Shouldn’t there come a point when peace-loving people rise up, rebel and protest against such awful stuff?
Can you imagine with me a home or store that has a placard at the front door, “No Anger Allowed Beyond This Point?” Or at a restaurant, “No Gluttons Served.” Or at schools, “No Insubordination Permitted,” or at the Stock Exchange, “Greed Not Tolerated.” These ideals sound far-fetched and dreamy today, but I suspect their day will come.
Smoke from cigarettes is one example of how an individual’s private actions can harm a neighbor’s well being that shares the same public space. Banning obnoxious fumes from communal spaces is a healthy start for the whole of humanity. But the more I thought about a growing moral imperative on earth to live cleaner and healthier, the more I can see the day when even more destructive forms of evil, like anger, hatred, resentment, revenge and their kin, will be seen as unacceptable too. And they will not be tolerated by a growing majority of public tuned into the benefits of living a life governed by love rather than selfishness.
Its’ an interesting scenario to consider…
Maya Angelou has been a leader in this movement and a terrific example of how to keep one’s environment pure of these types of assaults.
Greetings from Germany! I agree wholeheartedly ! 🙂 Just recently a plebiscite took place in the largest federal free state of Germany, Bavaria, which confirmed the strictest ban on smoking. Smoking never really belonged to any hostelry culture as suggested by the tabacco lobby. People are much better off without drugs like nicotine.
Right on!! I absolutely agree!!
Thanks Evan
How about every onramp posting a sign, “No road rage please”. A reminder that when we get behind the wheel, we can remain peaceful, patient, and considerate.
This blog sits a bit “off” with me from the standpoint of how we treat in Christian Science … do we really need no-smoking laws to be protected from the beliefs pertaining to second hand smoke? Or anti-anger signs to control terrorism? We are guards over our own thinking, yes? When I have been in smoke-filled areas, I have always been helped by understanding that “in atmosphere of Love divine, we live, and move, and breathe.” As we are better practitioners of our understanding of present perfection, present spirituality, present health, and love and peace, etc., as we properly reason from Cause to effect, we are armored and protected from such lies about man and habits. The question you ask, “Shouldn’t there come a point when peace-loving people rise up, rebel and protest against such awful stuff?” seems a bit backwards from the practice of “right reasoning” where we start with existence as always spiritual.
To above,
You make some thoughtful observations. However, I see No Smoking rules not as a cause of clean environment, but as the effect of increased moral and spiritual thought governing the environment. Your analogy of standing in smoke filled rooms and “rising above it” could be interpreted similar to putting up with a diseased body and praying to not be disturbed by the diseased body. Whereas, we expect the disease to disappear as we pray for a better understanding of health. I believe its a similar effect you see with improved environment, that as humanity understands and appreciates and values the clean environment God has given us to live in, there is a stand people take against the polluted thought that lead sto polluted atmosphere, and the effect is to clean up the atmosphere we live in. It’s not truth just in theory, but in practical proof.
I think this Bible verse fits in healing environmental situations – to do both, prayerful work and to take a stand for a betterment: …these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone…(Matthew 23, 23)
But, Evan, you don’t mention the word “God” once in the entire blog, nor even talk about how prayer has helped, or can help, the environment. It just seemed to come from the problem with no offering of solution except for more laws/signs, etc. My point about praying while in a smoked-filled room, acknowledging divine Love as our only true environment (including others in that room my prayer), starting with God in my treatment, allowed me to understand that we can never be injured or harmed in any way by the habits of others, or even by circumstances we seem to have no control over, and allowed me to walk away from that situation without even the smell of cigarette smoke on my clothes, or in my nostrils. Like the three Hebrew boys thrown into the fiery furnace, they had no choice regarding their circumstances, but were unharmed by their understanding of God.
You state … “It seemed like there was no choice at all, really, but to breathe the gross stuff and do one’s best to survive.”
And then “As a majority of people have come to realize the evils of smoking, directly or indirectly, public opinion, in North America anyway, has shifted to the side of favoring smoke-free environments, and thus we have the blessing we presently enjoy of clean air that was nowhere to be found not too many years ago.”
Focusing thought on “the evils of smoking” perpetuates belief in diseases (and consequent manifestation of disease) associated with the habit, instead of praying to see the nothingness of evil so that it is destroyed.
Your blogs are always so helpful from the standpoint of how Christian Science treats and heals these beliefs …. this one just didn’t feel like Christian Science practice to me, but more humanism, which is fine, except that since we have this amazing Science that the world so desparately needs, let’s really use it! : )