Musing Part II: What Am I Doing to Weave the Tapestry of Civility?

Part I: Have We Lost Our Civility ended with the question, “Who is this God you reflect to the world?”

Now I would like to focus on civility as a tapestry that covers the world with this God we reflect. 

So much is happening in the world.  Most recently, we have seen images and have read about the horrific actions of the Hamas on the people who live in the Gaza Strip.  What wrong have these people done?  Why the barbaric treatment and hostility to children?  Why such hate?

The civility blanketing our world must extend to those who are our perceived enemies.

We have no control over the events in our life, we do have control over how we respond.  Civility requires that we must imagine others’ hurt and relate it to the hurt we would experience if we were in their place.

Aside from the barbaric, inhuman actions experienced in other parts of the world, we are experiencing (here) in our own country (USA) the tearing apart of the tapestry of civility on which our democracy was born.  What has happened to “one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all?” or that we have a government that is “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

It seems that many of our representatives in Congress are sewing threads of personal and party power over the whole cloth of those they are representing. The weaving of their own agenda super cedes their commitment to represent their constituents. Such action is self-serving and destructive rather than other-centered and constructive.

The tapestry of democracy in our country is being shredded thread by thread with lies, cheating, abuse of language, and disrespect of the human being.  Eric Hoffer wrote, “Rudeness is the weak man’s (woman’s) imitation of strength.”  Do you agree with this statement?  Can you look back on your own actions of when you were rude to show that you were strong?  Give it a try and I’m sure that you won’t have to take too much time to discover it for yourself.

Today’s question to reflect on is:  What are you doing in your everyday life to weave a tapestry of Civility and God’s love to unify the world and eradicate hate and the abuse of power?