Our weekly church bulletin includes a flyer called The Faith Connection. The theme of this week's flyer is fear and how God's love can help dispel fear.
One mini-essay discusses two different kinds of fear: a violent fear that causes ours hearts to pound and palms to sweat and a subtle, quiet fear that can choke our lives. The essayist's cautions us that the quiet, subtle fear can cause paralysis, can cause us to not do things for fear of the consequences. It robs us of our freedom to act.
The writer teaches us that to short-circuit this vicious circle we must reach "outside of ourselves".
Our weekly church bulletin includes a flyer called The Faith Connection. The theme of this week's flyer is fear and how God's love can help dispel fear.
One mini-essay discusses two different kinds of fear: a violent fear that causes ours hearts to pound and palms to sweat and a subtle, quiet fear that can choke our lives. The essayist's cautions us that the quiet, subtle fear can cause paralysis, can cause us to not do things for fear of the consequences. It robs us of our freedom to act.
The writer teaches us that to short-circuit this vicious circle we must reach "outside of ourselves".
I remember feeling afraid on September 11, 2001. I wondered whether acts of terrorism were going to take place in other parts of the United States. My heart pounded for several days wondering at whom our president would direct revenge, wondering what the stock market would do, wondering when airliner could fly again.
In me, that violent fear subsided in a few days or a few weeks.
The President, however, and his administration, tried to keep that violent fear stoked. Attacks were imminent. Attacks were coming. No whether, but when. And people who questioned authority were labeled traitors or naive. And the quiet, subtle fear grew. And grew. And people self-censored.
And the President used this fear to insulate himself from punishment while breaking the law in the name of fighting terrorism. Tap phones and intercept the communications of Americans. Torture. Kidnap. Kangaroo courts. What happened to the free country the terrorists hated and attacked!
This quiet subtle fear has indeed caused paralysis and inaction. Of course the main stream media is to blame in part for the relatively unquestioned march to war. Otherwise intelligent journalists failed to push the administration for answers.
The re-election of GWB in 2004 could be viewed as inaction too. Sure, he might not be the sharpest tool in the tool box, and we weren't greeted as liberators, and there were no WMDs but Sadaam was a bad guy and we haven't been attacked since September 11th.
Listen Senators and Representatives. You must look beyond your own re-election prospects and do the right thing with FISA and retroactive immunity for GWB's warrantless wiretapping program. We have a Constitution and it is supposed to protect our freedoms, freedoms from government intrusion on our lives. Freedom of speech and assembly. Swallow hard and say NO to fear and NO to GWB and NO to inaction and NO to those who want to dismantle our precious way of life.
Make GWB and the telecoms prove the warrantless wiretaps were necessary in a court of law.
This Old Guy is not afraid.
Crossposted at http://old-guys-rock.blogspot.com/