Jaws
Ever since seeing the movie “Jaws” when I was a kid, I’ve been afraid to go into the bathtub, much less the ocean. You can tell me all you want that it was only a movie, and there is a greater chance of being struck by lightning than being attacked by a shark, as the experts say. I still say, there is no reason to tempt fate.
I mean, I wouldn’t dance on a tin roofed building during a lightning storm, and I have no desire to swim with the sharks. My position my be extreme, but you’d think that even people that aren’t terrified of sharks would be careful when they are in their waters.
Anyway, with the recent headlines about people being maimed or killed by shark attack, you’d think people would exercise great care in waters that are known to harbor sharks, but recently, in Australia, a group of sightseers petted the snouts of sharks during a feeding frenzy on a whale carcass.
One of the daredevil tourists was even holding a baby with one hand while touching the sharks with the other. Officials are saying they may need to pass new laws “to protect people too stupid to protect themselves.”
They ought to know better. Didn’t they see “Jaws” when they were kids?
I suppose knowing something is dangerous isn’t enough, people need to exercise care and common sense instead of risking life and limb. At one level, it isn’t what a person knows that matters most, it is what they do with what they know. As good intentioned as the government officials may be, laws won’t “protect stupid people from themselves.” Nothing can. At some level, people have to act responsibly-to apply what they all ready know.
Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).
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