Earning Your Merit Badge

Earning Your Merit Badge

The Scouts are known for both good deeds and good manners. The Boy Scout law states that “a Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” This has led to calling someone who always wants to do the right thing a Boy Scout.

The world could use more Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. In a culture that celebrates selfishness above courtesy, perhaps we could all stand to crack open the Scout manual to remember what it means to care more for others than for ourselves.

Seeking to improve your manners will show others, as well as yourself, that people deserve your respect. Learning their customs and expectations, watching your bearing, asking for pardon when you fail—these are all the marks of someone on the road to becoming a better human being.

The merit badge for good manners is there for the taking. Go out and earn it.

“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” —John 13:35