Article by: Curtis Beaird
Photography by: Norma W. Beaird
I Timothy 1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear;
but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Fear Arrives
Regardless of Paul’s list of spiritual gifts …..…"love, power and a sound mind,” an ugly fear was visited on us on September 11, 2001. It hasn’t been the same since. Fear and its cousin anxiety are at all times just below the surface.
But wait, there is more. The economic meltdown of 2008 pushed us to a new edge. If the threat of them over there coming over here wasn’t enough, now we have the economic threat of the disappearing 401k, brought to us by a financial system we built and believed in.
Oh no! What to do? Where to turn?
Fear Grows
Today, fear is the emotion of choice. We continue to choose fear and its primary expression of anger as the engine that moves us. We prefer emotional spasms to informed decisions. Paul’s gift of a “sound mind” seems way too passive in the face of the hurricane of anxiety that faces us every day. Given the choice of thought or feeling, all we need is a word or two, and we can start ourselves a flash fire. Say “Communism” or “Communist” out loud in a mixed group and check the level of tension.
The Problem of a Sound Mind
Thought takes time. Developing the capacity to consider and decide requires a steady effort that an anxiety-driven anger can’t wait for. Patience may be a virtue. Today, it is considered a weakness, if not a liability. Quick, something has to be done! Panic, oddly enough, competes with boredom for the upper hand. Boredom in itself is a low-grade anger.
The little train that could now wears, not the face of courage, but the mask of grim determination. Shrill voices dominate. Rage, not reason, is offered as a guide. The power, love and sound mind that Paul thought were gifts of God have been driven underground by a fear that he implied was not sourced in God.
The Threat to a Sound Mind
Like it or not, and we don’t, there is no way back to the days of our pre 9-11 innocence. The days when we believed the illusion that we were safe and secure from all alarms are gone. Those were the good ‘ole days. Now, it’s a daily struggle over gun rights and the TSA. The burning question whispered here and there, “Whose house did the drone fly over today?” Conspiracy theories once laughed at as political fiction have fallen into the “where there is smoke, there is fire” category.
Jesus’ statement, “there shall be wars and rumors of wars” has become more than a statement of reality, it is a business model. By the way, not all drones are snoops. The one built by Kratos Defense and Security is described with some wonderful abstract and cool language. They state that these unmanned fliers are “…utilized as high fidelity enemy threat surrogates.” Yeah baby.
And, who wouldn’t want to cut a winged “surrogate” out of the sky with a 50 Cal. For a picture with substance, imagine shooting down a model airplane. Dirty Hairy never had it so good.
The High Cost of a Fear-Driven Anger
When rage replaces reason, it is easy to demonize would-be leaders. Romney and Obama have been demonized, and as long as fear and anger remain the emotion of choice, they will continue to be. We the angry believe that power lies in the strength of that emotion. Its heat generates such a sense of self, that for a fleeting moment, it dominates our feelings of helplessness. Never mind that it blinds us to the forward look.
We never realized that living on the outskirts of rage is debilitating. It robs us of thought. It reduces choice to what is put before us. Read that again. Anger reduces our choices to what is put before us. Like it or not, and we don’t, our fear-driven anger blinds us to possibilities that we could otherwise see if we settled, blinked twice and thought past the chaos that surrounds us….. and that is manufactured for us. Paul again…...
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear;
but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
The Final Loss
All of the above said to say this.......anticipation is buried. God’s gift of power is eclipsed.
Being a baby boomer, born in 1945, I knew the experience as a teenager of working construction alongside men who won their war. They were different animals. I was thirteen. They, to include my father, were in their early to mid thirties. Do you get the picture? There was nothing they thought they couldn’t do. I grew up in that atmosphere.
Super-charged anticipation is the best way to describe it. The Cold War? The Russian Missile Crisis? The hinky little bomb shelter built in front of the fire station a few blocks from our home? None of that applied. Today was what it was, good, bad or indifferent…… but we were on the way to tomorrow. Tomorrow was always on the way to better.
A friend of mine in his forties said to me a couple days ago, “I hope I can keep my job so I can retire. Maybe we can get the country headed in the right direction.” If you saw him, you would think you were seeing a professional in mid-career. He sees himself as a tired man with a job he hopes to keep. A man looking for a way out of the fray. At forty-something? The spirit of the line, “I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul,” has long departed the building.
As for me and my house, we trust God and His Word.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear;
but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
Bring it on. The best is yet to be.
Copyright 2012, Curtis Beaird. All rights reserved.
