The Five Fears

My apologies for any typos, grammatical errors.  This is from my heart, am not doing even a spell check.  It is what it is. 

Fear destroys freedom.  Fear makes people willing, even eager, to hand over their freedom & liberties for an assurance of greater security, even if they know it is bogus.  They turn over, of their own free will, what is precious beyond measure for something that's mere sham. 

They wait in long lines & are careful not to take anything liquid in their online luggage when they fly, taking off their shoes & making sure that they put all their metal items in a little dish before walking through hulking metal detectors, a security precaution that is for show, since so many other areas of access to the actual aircraft are left wide open.  The TSA rules aren't to provide actual safety, but to assure the masses through an appearance of it.

The Patriot Act.  The NSA data collection.  The push, after the shooting at Pulse, not for tighter gun regulations but for more surveillance access.

One of the greatest hits we took as a culture after 9/11 was the massive fear of vulnerability that was left behind.  "How could this happen to us?"  "Who messed up that this happened?'" "What can we do to ensure that this never happens again?"  The country wanted assurances of protection, which no government can really give, & traded our freedoms for the reassurance of the appearance of safety.

We were still reeling from 2001 when we were hit with the 2008 financial meltdown, which left our nation in the grip of a fear of scarcity.  We saw savings vanish, saw jobs head overseas to cheaper labor markets, saw retirees working at Walmart & Giant Supermarket, saw "a good wage for a good hour's work" disappear.  The wealthy recovered, the poor absorbed the hit & moved on, but the mighty American middle class was left shattered.  And determined to hold onto what they have, grieve for what they've lost.  Without any help from the government to recover.  They see the cause of their sad lot not in the financial institutions that caused the calamity, but in the people who were sold loans they couldn't afford, in the illegal immigrants who do the jobs Americans shun.

From a president who doesn't look like any that came before to people who dress & worship differently than most of us, to the babble of foreign voices heard at the next table at a coffee shop, to wondering what those letters mean advertising an international food store - we are surrounded by evidence of The Other, the Not Us.  How did an African-American with a suspicious-sounding name, whose stepfather was raised a Muslim, who is - unlike Clarence Thomas - married to an African-American whose ancestors were slaves ~ ~ how did he manage to be elected President of the United States TWICE?  Why are there so many Eastern Europeans strolling around the grounds of my beautiful cathedral?  Is the food at the restaurant Mexican-Americans frequent as tasty as what get at Taco Bell?  Is that woman in the hijab looking plotting chaos & murder? 

We stock our houses with bottled water because our nation's water systems are breaking down.  We hope that the chemicals fracking companies inject deep into the ground won't contaminate the soil & poison our water.  Parched housing developments built in dry areas that can't sustain them are forced to import water. Once mighty rivers are in danger of becoming a trickle, mighty dams hold back a fraction of the water they once held, a scarcity of winter snow leaves reservoirs unstocked with spring run off, dry conditions kill off trees while lightning strikes turn tinder into wild fires.

We are isolated from one another, often living great distances from other members of our families, no longer banded together into small towns & strong communities.  Work transfers families without regard to the impact on the indivduals.  People of all ages are more dependent on their digital devices than on one another.  We have gone from living within tribes & clans to living increasingly solitary lives, having a silo existence. 

Fear of vulnerability.

Fear of scarcity.

Fear of The Other.

Fear of the environment.

Fear of authentic connection.

The Five Fears that drive so much of today's social political spiritual melt down. 

Well, I choose joy.  And faith.  I choose believing that others are doing the best they can in any given situation.  I choose believing in the deeply rooted American value that people have the right to disagree with me, even if it drives me nuts. I choose to take no thought for the morrow, to do my best in this moment.  I choose to be grateful for all that I was give & to do everything I can to share what I have - what I consider scarcity another considers wealth.  I will brush away the fears that seek to hold sway over my life. 

I will not give Osama Bin Laden the great victory he sought - I will live my life in hope & gratitude, not in fear & terror.  Because all who do, give him the posthumous glory & victory he sought.  I will not let those who died in the twin towers, at the Pentagon, in a Pennsylvania field, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, all over the world, die in vain.  I will live every day of my life celebrating the Four Freedoms my country celebrates - Freedom of Worship, of Speech, from Want, from Fear - and let that be my greatest legacy.