I love old movies, especially movies of the pre-sixties era. My favorite actor of that time period has to be Jimmy Stewart. With masterful skill, Stewart protrayed the everyday man who faced extraordinary obstacles. Who can forget George Bailey's frantic search for his family in It's a Wonderful Life?

Other than those earlier films being void of color, a younger viewer may notice that Jimmy Stewart and his fellow actors wore hats. In those days, a man would feel poorly dressed if he left home without one.

A bearer of such headgear would often greet people by holding its brim and lifting or tilting the hat slightly off his head. This form of salutation is known as "tipping your hat".

This phrase reminded me of a popular country song, titled Keeper of the Stars. In the song is a line: "I tip my hat to the keeper of the stars", which, of course, references God as the orchestrator of the cosmos.

Naturally, we welcome any song where God is mentioned in a positive light, but is there a potential dark side to all this hat tipping?

If we hat tip God, it suggests that we are at least not an atheist, though it reveals little about our spirituality. It seems hat tipping can be like brick facade on a new house. It looks real but it's not.

With that said, politicians are probably the most prolific hat tippers there are. During the inauguration of our latest president, the word, "God", was sprinkled into various speeches like pepper in a pot of chili.

Some celebrities also tend to be hat tippers and, like the politicians, I cannot gauge the degree of their sincerity. Yet, I have the feeling that, at least for some, hat tipping is the extent of their acquaintance with God. If true, it is a sad truth indeed.

Still more troubling, could the practice of hat tipping also have slipped into the assembly of believers? Have we've heard sermons littered with "I think", "I did" and "I'm going to do" with an occassional hat tip to God to maintain a proper perspective? If so, this truth is even sadder.

Yes, hat tipping is acknowledging another person, but let us not forget that acknowledgement is not servitude and empty words are merely wisps of nothing.

<>God's will is one day at a time<>