What’s Your Prefix?

As I was reserving an airline ticket online, I came to the page to enter my details. The “prefix” options were:

MR
MS
MRS
MONK

monk-prefix

In all my seven years of reserving airline tickets online in Thailand, I hadn’t encountered this option before.

Buddhist monks have specific restrictions as part of their religious beliefs and activities (or non-activities, as the case may be). One requirement is that they not touch women. I suspect the airline’s “prefix” box is a kind way to prevent the trouble that might ensue if a monk is seated next to a woman on an airplane—perhaps even a foreign woman unaware of the monk’s restrictions. Can you imagine? MRS Foreign Woman in the window seat to MONK So and So in the aisle seat: “Excuse me while I step over you to go to the lavatory.” NOoooooooo…

A monk’s restrictions are wrapped up in his very identity as a monk. As a normal MR he would not have those rules, but as MONK So and So, he keeps them, presumably willingly. (Yes there are monks that don’t want to be monks, or are disenchanted with monkdom and rules and rituals. But I would say that the majority want to be there.) “Because I am MONK So and So, I don’t sit next to women on airplanes.”

What about our identity as children of God? Do we gladly take that role as our “prefix” and let it determine how we act and respond to people and situations around us?

“Because I am CHILD OF GOD So and So, I don’t react out of anger.”

“Because I am CHILD OF GOD So and So, I show grace toward others just as my Father has shown grace to me.”

“Because I am CHILD OF GOD…”

I don’t gossip;

I am more than a conquerer in Christ;

I tell about all Jesus has done for me;

I don’t let road rage get the best of me;

I have been set free from the law of sin and death;

I give generously…

What else goes with your prefix? Do you wear it gladly?