“Fear cannot touch me… It can only taunt me, It cannot take me, Just tell me where to go… I can either follow, Or stay in my bed… I can hold on to the things that I know… The dead stay dead, They cannot walk. The shadows are darkness. And darkness cannot talk” ― Christopher Rice
I saw recently that less than 50 of percent of the US population are vaccinated against Covid-19, and of the unvaccinated, a substantial number are fearful of the vaccine itself. It hit me that the prevailing psychological weather that has surrounded this pandemic has been fear.
To be clear, we need fear. It has an important place in keeping us safe. Fear is meant to spur us to action if we’re under threat. Sometimes, it’s meant to get our attention, telling us to look more closely to see if the danger is real.
Fear, like misery, loves company. It can spread over a whole region like a blizzard.
This happened with the kids in my neighborhood on Queen Ann Hill.
One day, my brother Steve and I headed out to play in the big gully behind our house. As we bounded down we both slipped and tumbled down, head over heels. When we landed we were shaken up and hurting. We both knew we’d never be able to climb up the way we came. The only way we could get home again was to go through the gully to other side. But that was impossible because of the quicksand we understood bordered the entrance to the gully. That’s right, quicksand — the kind that swallows you whole. Really scary stuff.
How this quicksand story got started I can’t say, but it had become part of neighborhood lore. All the kids on our block both believed the story and were scared silly because of it. So as Steve and I arrived at the edge of the gully we were paralyzed in fear.
We had no idea how we’d get to the other side.
Then, after some time, a man appeared. He was an old man, the guy who’d actually built the street on which we lived: Mr. Lorentz, for whom our street, Lorentz Place, was named.
He called out to ask if we needed help. We told him we both were hurt and couldn’t climb back up the gully, and that now we could go no further because of the quicksand. He hollered back, “What quicksand?”
We pointed to the marshy wetland in front of us. He said, “Boys, there’s no quicksand there, just marshland where water drains from the gully. It’s perfectly safe to walk across.”
He waved his hand, beckoning us to come across. We remained frozen in fear.
Finally, he said, grinning from ear to ear, “Let me show you,” and he marched out across the marshland, splashing water with each step. As he neared us he said, “See, boys, no quicksand. Now, take my hand and follow me back.”
We did follow him and we never feared the quicksand or any other dark tale of the big gully again.
“The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before… You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The wise man in the storm prays to God, not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear.”
Just a thought…
Pat
Copyright © 2021 Patrick J. Moriarty. All Rights Reserved.
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