{"id":725,"date":"2020-08-19T17:30:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T17:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/?p=725"},"modified":"2020-08-23T14:53:54","modified_gmt":"2020-08-23T14:53:54","slug":"civility-in-time-of-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/2020\/08\/19\/civility-in-time-of-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Civility in time of crisis&#8230;."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"268\" height=\"107\" src=\"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/7-17-2020-namaste-hands-2.jpg-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-727\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<p class=\"fonts-plugin-block\" style=\"font-weight: normal;font-size: 15px;line-height: 1.3\"><br><strong><em>More Than Halfway<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0by Barbara Helvey Hughes, 8-18-2020<br>\u00a0<br>How can it possibly be August, already?\u00a0 The END of August!\u00a0 What a year 2020 has been so far!\u00a0 It\u2019s all too easy to look at the world right now and focus on the sadness, the losses, the calamities and chaos which seem to come at all of us in waves.\u00a0 None has been spared as we\u2019ve all faced what seems like impossible circumstances, and especially those who have lost Loved ones in the midst of it all.\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>We pit one against the other without real thought of what we\u2019re saying and doing to each other.\u00a0 I wonder where civility and kindness have gone and it seems to me, at least, that we have thundered down into baseness far, far more than ever before in my memory.\u00a0 It saddens me.<br>\u00a0<br>With the advent of the internet, I\u2019ve watched as people I Love engage in mean-spirited behaviours I thought I\u2019d never see from certain people.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had to monitor my own words and behaviours, constantly, because for some odd reason politics and religion seem to possess the ability to make many of us react, instead of respond when, in fact, taking just a couple of moments to stop, breathe and think would make all the difference in the world.<br>\u00a0<br>So, as I make a personal decision to stay out of the far right or left politically\/religiously pitched posts on Facebook, if YOU (a Friend) have posted it, please know that my non-response is no indictment against YOU or your beliefs.\u00a0 I\u2019ve decided, after the past few weeks of facing more and more insistent and aggressive Facebook posts, that I will do my best NOT to respond with words I know full well will hurt others, unnecessarily challenge their beliefs, rankle them or raise their ire.\u00a0<br>\u00a0<br>Life is way too short to think we can EVER convince another to our way of thinking by posting something on Facebook, and I\u2019d rather NOT be friends with someone I could convince so easily!<br>\u00a0<br>Differences make us use our brains!\u00a0 Anger makes us become sick with all kinds of life-threatening illnesses!\u00a0<br>I LOVE all of you.\u00a0<br>Please try to keep your posts thoughtful, as wise as possible, factual and kind as well as CIVIL.\u00a0 Actions speak louder than words so if you\u2019re adamant about something, get out there and work for your cause.\u00a0<br>Love is the language spoken here.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BE more.  Kinder.  More Thoughtful.  More Loving.  Less critical.  Less hateful.  More likely to help than to harm&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essays","category-opinions","category-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":729,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725\/revisions\/729"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hughesgallery.net\/barbarahelveyhughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}