It was a revelation that came at the side of a road and ultimately it was a thought-provoking, insightful, and painful new understanding of human nature. Yet, as I sat in my car this week to watch flaggers stand at the side of the road and stop a line of cars so the needed road construction could progress, I truly understood how tough their job is. That’s because for one summer I, too, was a flagger. The lessons I learned, there on the side of the road, have stayed with me all these years, influencing my character and challenging the attitudes I hope to project to others.

For you to fully understand the impact of my roadside experiences I must provide some background information about myself. I never once heard either my mother or father even imply that because I was born female I was valued less than my brother. I never once heard, “You can’t do that. You’re a girl!” or, “It’s not a woman’s place to go live that independently, choose that career, or dream that dream!”

Instead, I was regularly reminded during my childhood how happy my parents were that I was born. I was protected and cherished. In response I was expected to live with courage and honor, to work hard and be helpful to the people in my life.

Many late Baby Boomers like me can relate to a childhood lived in modesty, for our parents learned from their Depression-era parents that there was honor in serving your country, working hard, encouraging your children to live bigger and bolder than the generation before, and being respectful of the people around you. When the Women’s Movement in America began talking of equal rights and opportunities, many parents envisioned a new day for their daughters. Mothers, in particular, wondered what it would be like to live and work on a more level playing field, where men and women are treated equally.

I thought about such progress on that day, now years ago, when I set down my flagging sign, momentarily took off my hard hat, and asked God to repair my bruised psyche. Of the many hats I had chosen to wear in my life, wearing that bright yellow hard hat had been the most protective, yet took me to places of extreme vulnerability.

Hard hats and iridescent vests are designed to bring workers into clear view of approaching drivers and be somewhat protective, but the more time I spent flagging the more I mentally envisioned the outfit as a shield, deflecting the venom, molten language, and unreasonable frustration that occasionally poured out onto me when I asked hurried drivers to slow down, stop briefly, or heaven forbid—take an alternate route.

The summer I flagged I reaped what we sowed as a society some decades before: I and the other flaggers with whom I worked were regularly treated in the most ugly of manners as we did our best to safely control traffic around those construction sites. To my great surprise and sorrow, this included being called the worst of names and witnessing the worst of human behaviors on a daily basis.

I got what I had asked for: I was treated with complete equality. I had the grandiose idea that being completely equal would solve a great many of our society’s social and economic challenges. At the same time I felt sickened and disillusioned I also got a surprising lesson from God: Isolated ideology–vacant of morality, ethics, and mores–brings people to equally low levels.

Author and therapist Michael Gurian in his book, “The Good Son: Shaping the Moral Development of Our boys and Young Men,” speaks specifically to boys when he says that a dangerous and exponentially growing number of our boys” live in moral confusion, ethical numbness, moral distraction, and spiritual emptiness.” And lest you think I am unfairly picking on men, I have seen enough bad behavior from women to apply Gurian’s assertions to a more general understanding. As a society, we will not generously or graciously respond to interruptions, inconveniences and personal sacrifices without a foundation of morality and faith.

It is my belief that without a relationship with God and the desire to apply God’s morals and values, we are evolving into people who are self-centered, undisciplined, impulsive, inarticulate and unable to empathize with others.

Dear Lord,

Draw near to us. We need your influence to bring out the best in us when we are delayed, troubled and inconvenienced. Give us the desire to care about the lives of others, even when our paths cross for only brief moments.

Amen.