When a salesperson knocked on my door last week showing off alarm systems and all the fancy accessories that were available, I politely told him I wasn’t interested. I didn’t feel like that was something we needed. He tried to scare me into it: “well, maybe you haven’t seen what I’ve seen” I once again declined to be interested.
It was one of those moments of clarity to me about how those kind of scare tactics are prevalent in our society. About all sorts of topics. You have to do ____________to keep _______________ safe. Fear of something different is running rampant in the media and we all get to be a part of stopping it.
No matter your gender, race, creed, orientation, geographical location, etc, you have been the in the blank space of ____ is what is wrong with the world. Those ____ are what need to be feared.
What if we said no to fear? What if we said every person on this earth is my sibling? Think about it.
No really. Think about it for a moment. I’ll wait…
This is a core of the teaching of Unity and many other faith traditions.
In fact, much of what we see as religious conflict on the news, is a result of a minority of people who have twisted the core teachings of their faith. These groups use fear of something different as their fuel.
Our practice is to not add fuel to the fire of fear.
When you hear “they always” “they never” “they’re the problem” this is a big warning sign. You as a spiritual master in training need to ask the question, is this true? Does this idea contribute to peace or fear? Don’t be part of the silent majority that does nothing in the face of a harmful minority. I’m not saying it’s easy, I’m saying it’s necessary.
Does this mean I don’t lock my home or car? No, I do, though I know people who don’t, and there was a time I didn’t lock my car, but it was much older and covered in hippy stickers.
There is the old saying, “Trust in Allah and tie your camel”. Even with a trust in God, that doesn’t mean you have to make it easy for your camels to wander off or for your home to be burgled.
Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity responded to a query about having insurance this way: buy insurance if it helps you sleep at night. (We must remember that the insurance system of Charles’ time 100 years ago was quite different than ours)
For some this advice may mean having the fancy alarm system, for others it means having comprehensive insurance, for others it means none of these things.
In Divine Audacity by Linda Martella-Whitsett she writes under the topic of Faith:
“The fruit of trust is a peaceful mind.”
And so I practice trust and tie my camel. When I have an emotional response or curiosity about the sensationalist things that push for divisiveness in the news, I do some research and with that fact based information I can look beyond the soundbite and know the truth. Which is usually not nearly as scary as the newspeople and internet memes would like us to believe. I even will let people know when they post information that is not factual, in a nice way of course.
Somehow fear has become the ‘thing’ that sells. It sells security systems, ad time on news shows and wrinkle cream to aging folks.
I am here to be part of the revolution that says that love can be a greater motivator.
Even when we refuse to let fear control us there may still be action that needs to be taken, but it can be done without fear as the motivator. With love as a motivator, we can see that we want to have more love for each other, for the earth, for whatever cause gets us fired up. But let’s do it from love of wanting to grow what we care about, not fear of what’s wrong.
In Daniel Nahmod’s song, Last Song he writes this:
“Is the world a little more peaceful
Oceans and sky a little more blue
Is humankind a little bit wiser
About the good that we can do
Does the sun shine a little bit brighter
Where before there was only rain
If so, then I’m glad I came”
Choose love. Release fear.
Let love win.
Rev. Ra
PS if you want to hear the whole song: