Odyssey Networks – On Scripture
"Fear is in the air.
" War. Conflict. Economic turmoil. Political victories. Political losses. This is the stuff of the nightly news. And everywhere we look we have a new villain to worry about, a new threat against which we ought to brace, a new sense of hopelessness.
" This is nothing new, of course. The world has always been a scary place. If anything, we have become inured to the greatest threats we might face. With roofs over our heads and weather forecasters to warn us of impending storms and economic structures to cushion us from financial catastrophe, we keep vany dangers at bay.
" And yet in the midst of so much safety and comfort, we seem to search compulsively for something to fear, something to raise our ire, something that will keep us up at night. It is not enough to feel safe apparently; for some reason, fear is too tempting.
" And most troubling may be that all that misdirected energy keeps us from loving our neighbor near and far and addressing the real dangers we face as a people. As we worry about some fantastical fear, the reality of a yawning gap between the wealthy and the poor can seem too ordinary and thus not worthy of our attention. While we tremble at the prospect of an international war that may well be averted or at the threat of a disease that we have a minute chance of catching, we don’t see the victims of that potential war, that ravaging disease. While we worry about the remotest possibilities, the real, daily cries of our neighbor go unrequited.