ELAN Blog ~ Week 41, Day 209

Yesterday I shared some experiences from recent travels to Ethiopia. Keep in mind they were simplified snapshots of a complex world. Were we to photograph every inch of the earth for one day or one year we would still have very little information compared to the whole of existence. We form opinions and beliefs based on our own snapshots of experience. What we store in our memory is flavored with emotion. Emotion that is tainted with past experience and memory, almost like a cycle of perception and reflection.

Current conversations often turn to doom and gloom. What is the world coming to? The world is going to hell in a hand basket. We are spinning downward toward inevitable entropy. Creation must end in destruction. You get the picture. Such conversations quickly turn to the blame game. It is the government’s fault (or at least the half you don’t agree with). Or it is that government’s fault. It astounds me that people I know and love think nothing of blaming one race or ethnic group for the current ails in this world. Really? Such beliefs are based on fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear that one’s own group might lose power to another. Fear that urban legends and viral social media misinformation is true.

There is only one thing I know to be true. Love is the antidote to fear. Love is what fills the ocean of truth. Unconditional love does not need to be defended. It is what it is. It doesn’t change as political or popular winds shift. People in our lives present infinite opportunities to express such love. Fear keeps us from doing so. I admit to have much to learn regarding how to love fearlessly and most days I am not brave enough to try. Yet that is how one reaches beyond the tempests and peacefully rides the waves on the ocean of truth.

TODAY listen to conversations around you. Are they based on fear or steeped in love? How brave are you when it comes to love?

“God is love.” I John, 4:16

“We must love one another or die.” W. H. Auden, 1907-1973