"Appropriately Frightened"

Today in the mailbox there was a small local shopping newspaper that contains some advertising, some local news and some editorial and general interest columns. One of them is written by a minister and the few times I glanced at it I could see that it included the usual threats about hell and damnation. Today however I was intrigued by the title which was "What are you really afraid of?" As I started through the first few paragraphs it didn't seem like the usual stuff at all. He described various phobias and included the names of a few famous people who were victims thereof. He then went on to state that fear was a paralizing emotion which trapped people within their homes, their bodies and even their minds, and that fear stunted personal growth and achievement. Hey, so far so good I thought...this guys making sense. So much so that when he went on to share another ministers opinion that we should be "appropriately frightened" of God, that he was going to argue the man's point. No such luck! He quickly contradicted his whole opening hypothesis by agreeing that a little fear was a good thing, closing with a quote he credited to Jesus Christ, who reportedly said, "Be afraid of the ONE who can destroy both the soul and body in hell!"

Lovely!

I don't want you to think that I'm always religion bashing but I just can't get my head around the idea that we should be good people because we're afraid to do otherwise. His opening comments clearly stated the belief that fear is a useless emotion and I agree wholeheartedly. It has never done anything for me in any regard other than age me more quickly. A little respect and a little wisdom and a little forethought of course but appropriately frightened? Absurd! I would call it inappropriately frightened. We should rather strive for a condition of being appropriately unafraid. That's the condition in which we can move to action. That's the condition in which we learn to love. That's the condition in which we are open to different cultures and different opinions....and maybe even different religions eh? I rest my case!

And since a picture is worth a thousand words I give you this to illustrate. Colby is appropriataly unafraid of a dead mouse.



And I suppose you could say that the mouse was inappropriately unafraid of me and my traps! But....like the mouse, I would still rather go quickly in ignorance than starve to death. Either way I'm pretty sure I ain't going to Hell. Some of you may disagree.

Hey, I just had a brain wave! Is fear not the opposite of "faith" rather than a part thereof?!

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here."---Anon

“Fear makes strangers of people who would be friends."---Shirley MacLaine

"Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear."---Albert Camus

love
peter