Here’s an idea that I like.  Regardless of your particular religious affiliation or lack thereof, the notion the we all need to ask forgiveness and we all need to be nice is a good street sign.  I first saw this sign at 25 or 30 miles per hour as I was headed out of town and I thought it simply said “Forgive” and “Be Nice” and I liked it then.  Today I stopped to take a picture of it and realized it isn’t so much a command or suggestion, as it is a plea and a question.  In small letters next to “Forgive” is the word “me,” and just above “Be Nice” in equally small letters are the words “can you.”

I have a fair number of opinions.  Many times I probably share them a little more forcefully than necessary.  More and more, I am thinking that while discourse and argument are not in and of themselves bad things, today’s world of electronic posting and tagging makes it a little too easy to forget there is a human looking at the other side of that screen somewhere.  So we might want to think, as we make our points with wit and force, to every once and a while ask for forgiveness if we get a little out of line, or suggest being nice as a more appropriate response.

The information superhighway is wide and wonderful and fast.  But it doesn’t have enough really good street signs yet.  Forgive me.  Can you be nice?