A boy was recently disallowed from boarding a plane in South Africa unless he changes the t-shirt he was wearing or turns it inside out. The reason: the t-shirt has a bold picture of a snake and the airline officials told him and his mother, he will constitute a source of anxiety to other travellers if he boarded the plane with them. It was good the mother reasoned with them and compelled the boy to turn it inside out. But the question is why did he wear it in the first place or why did the mother buy it for him or let him wear it on a trip in the first place?

The truth is that some of us don’t know, or we have lost the sense of image association due to our craze for independence, self-satisfaction and rebellion against every sane order. When we were growing up, there are some things we don’t do or don’t like to do because of what they are associated with. You don’t leave your hair unkempt because that is associated with mad people. Today, that is fashion. You don’t wear a torn cloth because that is associated with either madness or poverty. That has also become a fashion. You care what name you bear or what names you give to things because you care about the association it has and the meaning it rings in people’s mind. Someone attended a church recently and when I asked of the name of the church, he said it is “Watergate Church.” I marvelled because Watergate is associated with a popular scandal in America.

Wisdom demands that we know we are not the only one living in the world. We should recognise how people feel about us and our actions. We should also learn to do things or bear images that are associated with positive values and virtues, such as love, joy, goodness, decency, moderation, integrity, healing, peace, respect and consideration for others, humanness, and maturity. While the world keeps redefining morality, we, as Christians should stand out to tell the world what is moral, ethical, biblical and godly in all sense of it.

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