Ed asks, "How do you deal with hostility and hurtful speech?"

We should consider the sources which may likely be teenage boys, drunks and others less enlightened. Not only threatening physically they might also have a weapon of some kind. So I try to be very tolerant, far from being provocative and very passive. I once walked over in a movie lobby to a middle-aged couple who were not hostile or threatening but certainly starring and said to the man in a pleasant voice, “You must have questions?” He smiled and in a most touching way replied, “It must take great courage.” You can also be pleasantly surprised by people’s reactions if you conduct yourself in a respectful, human sort of way.