LENTEN MESSAGE

“The key to change… is to let go of fear!”

Wisdom from one of our latter-day sages… Roseanne Cash

There’s so much to fear out there. Or better stated, there’s so much that can inspire fear in us;

I’ve heard people talk, either to me, within ear-shot, or in the media, of real and/or manufactured fear-inspiring issues; the Muslim invasion, the illegal immigrant invasion, the decay and fall of our political system, the decay and fall of our legislative system, the “activist” judges, wars with no end in sight… all filling a whole bucket-o-worry!

Truth is… fear “sells”. It’s times like this that the use of fear can become a commodity; who has more, who can inspire more, and who can leverage it best for their own ends. And it seems to inspire more of the same. People can become caught up in it, wrapped up in it, buy into it, and even be used by it (through the manipulations of others).

All this fear can create an environment of mistrust and distrust! You’ve seen and heard it – just watch the shows, or listen to the radio; one side accuses the other of being not only unpatriotic, but of actively and knowingly causing the downfall of our country. This gets even more ratchetted up in elections. We’ve got a mid-term electoral cycle coming up… watch this happening again! “Fear” (as a tool for political ends) will get ramped up.

There’s a line in an old John Mellencamp song: “The face of the nation keeps changing and changing, the face of the nation- I don’t recognize it no more.” It’s more and more true, John! Things are changing! Our country is changing! For good or for ill, our country is not the same as it was when we older people (according to my daughter, my 52 years puts me in the “older” category) were kids!

People change, countries change… things do indeed change! I do understand that sometimes things can get objectively – “unbiasedly” – bad. And then we do something about it to make things better. These actual “bad things” can be managed, worked on, improved, alleviated… for all our benefits!

But, I wonder how often people (politicians, people with political objectives) use “change” as a means to manipulate us into some political objective? I wonder how often we’re manipulated into thinking that these normal changes in the life-cycle of nations are “bad”.

In truth… and I don’t mean this facetiously… things have always changed! “Change” isn’t the problem… it’s our fear of that change that’s the issue!

I don’t think I’m being super-prophetic if I say that the more we let fear win, the more we lose trust in each other, the more we lose our ability to help each other, to heal, to learn and grow. If fear wins, and mistrust wins… then we’ll become just like the TV “reality” shows that eliminate one contestant at the end of each episode – they’re not there to make friends or help each other (except if helping helps them win later) or come together as a community to survive. They are there for the Nielsen ratings, and grand prize economic equivalent of “kill or be killed”. No one trusts anyone on those shows. Everyone is scared that someone else will win their money.

Well, our country, our collective and individual futures, our lives aren’t a “Reality Show”. [Actually those shows aren’t “reality” at all, they’re more like unscripted soaps! Believe me, they’re managed and manipulated so we’ll all tune back in next week, like good little TV lemmings!]

We, collectively- even though we may not look like each other, even though we may speak different languages, even though we may worship differently, even though… even though… can we see we’re all -ALL- in this together!

We can learn from each other, we can help each other lower our level of collective ignorance, we can help each other lower our level of mistrust, we can help raise our levels of hope!

Or we can fight among ourselves, point fingers and lay blame, vote each other off the island, stab each other in the back, or whatever other metaphor fits here.

When Moses had successfully led his people (almost) to the Promised Land, he stopped them on the ridge that separated the desert/wilderness from the Promised Land, and spoke to them:

On this side is death and curse… on this side is blessing and life! Choose life!

They could have stayed in the desert and led a life of fear there… or taken their first tentative steps into something new… steps taken with a certain degree of fear as well! But what outweighed the fear was the trust that God had led them there, and that their God could take something scary and turn it into a blessing.

Folks, we have that same choice! Fear will always be there; Fear of change… or fear of a new future we’re being led into! Will fear prevent us from coming together to make something new? Or will fear drive us towards mistrust, hostility, (and the openness to be manipulated by it) and conflict?

Do you believe in a God who leaves you on your own… or do you believe in, and trust, a God who loves you? We have the same choice… in spite of the fear, personal and/or collective! Can you step out in trust- and reach out to this changing face of the nation? Can you step out in trust and speak words of community to this changing face of the nation?

Fear of "tomorrow" will hold us back, and ultimately cause the death of this grand experiment… or... we’ll step out in spite of it, and open to something we haven’t even dreamed of yet! Don’t lose trust in each other – even the new faces!

If we work this rght... we could indeed have a New Day! To get there we have to be led by the deeper (and very practical) values of "community", "cooperation", being open to learning!

More to come about this...