{"id":200,"date":"2017-10-09T12:19:26","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T12:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=200"},"modified":"2017-10-09T12:19:27","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T12:19:27","slug":"what-brings-out-the-worst-in-human-beings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=200","title":{"rendered":"What brings out the worst in human beings?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18pt;\">The answer is fear.\u00a0<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">We live in a climate of fear in our nation. Every time we turn on the news, we see the worst playing out in front of us. Political division. Violent protests. Terrorism. Not only that, social media and other public forums are becoming an increasingly toxic place in which to attempt to address these issues. Though some voices are calling us to accept\u00a0 and understand one another, they are often drowned out by self-appointed judges who punish those who dare to express a different opinion with verbal attacks and ridicule. Fear of being targeted by these firing squads causes many to withdraw from speaking their minds when it comes to controversial issues, even if their input is valid and inspiring. The worst isn\u2019t just coming out in our \u201cmacro\u201d social problems; it\u2019s coming out every day in our conversations\u2014and it\u2019s all driven by fear.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">More than ever, we need to grow in relational intelligence\u2014to develop the attitudes and behaviours that create a safe place for people to be themselves and connect with one another. The central truth of relational intelligence is this:<br \/>\n<strong>Fear drives us away from people. \u00a0Love drives us toward people.<\/strong><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As long as we are aligning ourselves with the spirit of fear, we will be pursuing the goal of fear, which is distance and disconnection. We will end up caught in the endless cycles of injustice, offence, and punishment that cause so much chaos and pain to us and others.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The only way to pursue a new goal is to align ourselves with the spirit of love. Love\u2019s agenda is always connection. Only when we take personal responsibility to let love cast out fear in our own hearts can we hope to bring love to the hurting and divided world around us.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\">Adapted from a blog \u2018Keeping our love on in a climate of fear\u2019 Danny Silk<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lovingonpurpose.com\/blog\/keeping-our-love-on-in-a-climate-of-fear\">Loving on Purpose<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The answer is fear.\u00a0 We live in a climate of fear in our nation. Every time we turn on the news, we see the worst playing out in front of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fear","category-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}