{"id":388,"date":"2011-01-02T13:33:20","date_gmt":"2011-01-02T20:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/?p=388"},"modified":"2011-01-03T15:45:24","modified_gmt":"2011-01-03T22:45:24","slug":"thinking-about-pompeii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/thinking-about-pompeii\/","title":{"rendered":"Thinking About Pompeii"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve got to admit, I think about Pompeii from time to time.\u00a0 \"\"<\/a>When Vesuvius buried\u00a0that Roman city\u00a0nearly 2000 years ago in ash, the inhabitants were frozen in time.\u00a0 They exist today as human forms only – their personal histories, their essence, erased.\u00a0 Forms only.\u00a0 Who were these individuals?\u00a0 None were “famous.”\u00a0 Their names do not pass down the generations.\u00a0\u00a0 But in their time, as they breathed and gazed on sunlight, they touched others with simple acts of kindness by the boatload.\u00a0 There\u00a0must have been the\u00a0teacher who encouraged a child and transformed his view of himself…and the\u00a0wife who cared for an ill husband whose life faded -before a mountain erupted to bury her as well.\u00a0 No doubt those of light spirit brought smiles and laughter to others who were otherwise burdened by their own cares – daily worry must have been as much a\u00a0part of First Century Roman life as it is in ours.\u00a0 Those of gentle heart or fierce passion touched their fellows and raised their spirits.\u00a0\u00a0 Gifts were given out of the blue; visits were made to the grieving to lighten the weight of their loss; countless acts of simple kindness were made without any thought of compensation or return.\u00a0 And in a literal flash, they were all gone.\u00a0 Does that render the love and life-force-energy they shared pointless?\u00a0 We read history to hear stories of the storied.\u00a0 Yet\u00a0the fabric of life is made up\u00a0of the millions and millions of\u00a0normal, loving, caring, giving,\u00a0simply kind people who came before us and who live among us today.\u00a0\u00a0Every day I experience acts of kindness in my own home – simple gestures that\u00a0no-one but me will ever know about.\u00a0\u00a0I do believe that these loving gifts have a power –\u00a0a grace –\u00a0that\u00a0is transcendent.\u00a0\u00a0So when my mind wanders to these forms in ash, I invariably think about the blessings of simplicity and kindness all around me every day – and do everything I can to let them fill my heart.\u00a0 May 2011 be a year of kindness we provide, and receive….and recognize.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve got to admit, I think about Pompeii from time to time.\u00a0 When Vesuvius buried\u00a0that Roman city\u00a0nearly 2000 years ago in ash, the inhabitants were frozen in time.\u00a0 They exist today as human forms only – their personal histories, their essence, erased.\u00a0 Forms only.\u00a0 Who were these individuals?\u00a0 None were “famous.”\u00a0 Their names do not Continue reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[17,26,18],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/josephshaub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}