Character counts more than ever

 In my job I write quite a bit about Texas A&M’s RELLIS campus. The other day I paused to think about what the acronym RELLIS stands for.

RELLIS stands for the Aggie core values of Respect, Excellence, Leadership, Loyalty, Integrity, and Selfless service. Those are some great, foundational values. It also got me thinking about character traits. Character is very important to me. Several years ago I took a series of online assessments. The consistent thing they revealed is that I’m character driven.

I owe that to the Christian values I grew up with and reinforced as a Boy Scout. I spent decades as a Scout and Scout leader vowing to uphold the Scout Oath and Scout Law.

Scout Oath: On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

Scout Law: A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

I can’t say that I achieve all of that all of the time, but I do strive for it. I’ve had my shortcomings. We all do. The main thing is to put those failures behind you and course correct to doing what is good and what is right.

A person’s character reflects how they think and act. What you feed your mind directly impacts the things you say and do. You can’t be a positive person if you fill your mind with filth and negativity. As they say, garbage in, garbage out.

I believe in living my life by the Golden Rule, the biblical principle of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you (Matthew 7:12). I also believe, and sometimes struggle with, the command from Jesus to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you (Matthew 5:43-44).

After being whipped, beaten, spit on, cursed, and lied about, Jesus hung nailed on the cross and asked God to forgive his tormentors. That is the ultimate display of love and integrity. I can’t imagine going through that and still loving the ones causing you the most harm. I, like many people, get offended at small slights on social media. Sometimes we just need this reality check from Jesus, say bless your heart, and move on.

In recent weeks I have written stories about second chances given to offenders in the juvenile justice system. I think it’s great that our local justice system is focused on reform over punishment. I’ve heard several officials talk about how these kids are not bad people, they’ve just made bad choices.

Many of these kids have never learned the importance of good character and strong moral values. They haven’t been taught at home. Their negative actions stem from the lack of parental guidance and the infusion of negative digital influences. Children need and crave positive human interaction, especially from their parents. Too often in our hurried lives parents let a computer screen babysit their youngsters when what they really need is personal connection.

We’ve got generations who don’t know how to respectfully interact with other people. They are not being taught right from wrong, the importance of winning and losing, being generous and not greedy, and selflessness over vanity. How we right this ship and reestablish a moral compass is going to require a lot of hard work.

One of the foundations is focusing on these positive traits and keeping in mind the core values of RELLIS, the Scout Law, and the teachings of Jesus. We need to unplug from our screens and plug into real life. We need love, adventure, and friendship. We need each other and we need it now.