How to be more afraid!

Americans have fallen in love with their fear of COVID-19

In the Behind the Black blog, Robert Zimmerman writes in part,

We are now serfs to the state, our lives constricted by its desires to tell us how to live, in sometimes the most trivial manner. For now and into the future for generations, our political leaders will have the power to clamp down on us, shoving their boots onto our faces, whenever any minor flu epidemic might appear on the horizon.

Worst of all, too many people seem okay with this. To go back to normal means we all finally admit that COVID-19 is no longer a threat, that in fact it was never that much of a threat. This too is unacceptable. Americans have fallen in love with their fear of COVID-19, and no facts are going to dissuade them from giving up that love.

He analyzes the COVID-19 data here.

The secret to destroying fear and anxiety

Ann Voskamp writes a post showing how anxiety can wear anger’s mask.

Fear of failing, of falling, of falling behind, it can make us fierce. Oh, yes’m: Life can be messy before nine in the morning.

...It can happen — I felt it —

how unceasing thanks can make all these moments dance brave and unafraid.
Read much more here.

"When you’re driven hard by the waves of life, it’s tempting to be driven by either pride or fear."

Ann Voskamp writes at A Holy Experience,

hen I feel like we’re drowning in it all a bit, our daughter, Hope and I, we go up to the lake and feel the waves pound, feel the serene fury of water.

Feel the waves breaking against the earth and it quakes the inner cochlear and there’s nothing else to hear but the breaking.

Hope stands there with wind blowing strands of hair across her face, the electrical energy of each breath of wet, briny air sparking something in her.

“Is there anything lovelier, really, than the way waves keep touching the shore no matter what tries to keep pulling it away?” I lean into her, point down the foaming shoreline. Say it over the sound of the wind, of the crashing surf.

Hope tucks her hair behind her ear, “Love’s like waves — keeps reaching out no matter what tries to keep pulling it away.”

Her and I stand there in the battering of the elements, watching waves, watching how the light catches in water, how the waves move like the earth’s own pulse — like our own heartbeat.

“You know — a pool isn’t like this.” I say it slow, watching the waves, seeing it for the first time: “It has no power, no life — because it has no breaking of waves… Strange how that is: It’s in the breaking, there is life.”

What did my husband say again and again? “Never be afraid of being a broken thing… Unless a seed breaks, there is no life.”

...Scar tissue is stronger than original skin ever is. Scars are where the strength gets in — our breaking is where our strength gets in.

Love is what we have to give —- and love comes from places that are vulnerable and soft and tender enough to feel — to break.

Only those who are really vulnerable enough to be broken — get to be the ones who really love.

It can be that when you feel broken — it’s proof that you’ve given.

...Far beneath the breaking waves, beneath the crashing storm of things, there is a space, a stillness of the sea that doesn’t ever stir. That’s never disturbed.

...The only way through a wave breaking over you is to break deep into the roiling water and and dive down into the depths and stretch out both arms through the fathoms and and let yourself be made into the shape of a Cross.

Break into a shape of a cross, arms out-stretched and surrendered, and break deep into the breaking waves — and you break into the deep, deep peace of God. In the midst of the storms — live shaped like a cross, arms broken wide open, and you can break into the still cushion of the sea.

Read more here.

Both Trump and Clinton have chosen fear as their persuasion instrument

Although Scott Adams still predicts Trump will win in a landside, he believes that Hillary has had the upper hand on persuasion recently.

As regular readers of this blog know, both Trump and Clinton have chosen fear as their persuasion tool. Trump wants you to fear terrorists and criminals because he thinks he can make a persuasive case that he’s the solution to those fears. Clinton asks us to fear Trump himself, offering herself as the solution to that fear.

Read more here.

More clarity, please

Chateau Heartiste has this to say today:

...media shitlibs have taken to cooing stuff like “We can’t let fear and anger dictate our policies.” Newsflash, fear and anger are justified responses to endless violent attacks by enemies within. Fear and anger motivate actions to defend oneself from continuing attacks on one’s countrymen. If you aren’t fearful or angry, you’re holding a useless candlelight vigil and hoping the next truck doesn’t run over you and yours.

Snarky, juvenile language allows media shitlibs to emotionally disengage from a credible threat to one of their own. To wit, shitlibs also like to say “let’s not reduce this problem to something simplistic.” No, of course not. Complicating a rather straightforward horror show — muslim aggression against infidel White Westerners — is the rhetorical legerdemain that allows shitlibs to maintain a facsimile of faith in their Equalism ideology. What the shitlib mistakes for simplicity is to the sane mind known as clarity. More clarity, please, and don’t stop with the clarity until every last shitlib is too exhausted to fagslap the shitlord army as they’re assuming control of the main engine room.

Read more here.

Amazing grace up ahead!

At A Holy Experience Ann Voskamp figuratively tucks a note in her daughter's back pocket with some gentle reminders, as she waves goodbye to her daughter embarking on her adult life.

So — Braveheart, Beautiful Girl, quiet and lovely in a loud world — before you pack up and head out this summer to do good work in the world, this is the thing… maybe everything boils down to a handful of things?

Can I hand you handful of Brave and Beautiful Things for your every day?

Parents aren’t supposed to be the loud police voice in your head — but the gentle pastor at your side.

It’s always there — if you always listen for that quiet, gentle voice of Grace on the inside: You don’t have to get it perfect — you just have to get back up and keep going.

So maybe yeah, think of all this as a gentle note to tuck in your back pocket — and that this getting up every day and listening for His Voice, that’s Number One of the handful of brave and beautiful things for your every day:

Number One: Fall in love with the One who is The Way — and the way you’re supposed to go will follow…. as you follow Him.

You’ve got to want to be one with Him — more than you want to be a Someone.

You’ve got to want to serve more than you want to be seen, you’ve got to care more than you want to be comfortable, you’ve got to want to give more than you want to get.

You’ve got to want His approval more than all the other things that will prove to be worthless.

Number Two: Taste the grittiness of work — or you won’t ever taste success.
Every day you can get up and get scared — or you can get up and get yourself ready.

Nothing erases stress quite like preparation.

Bury all your nagging fears in your faithful work — or your fears will bury you in nagging doubts.

Promise yourself you’ll remember this because it will effect your joy: Be entirely engaged in the process of your work, and be entirely disengaged in outcome of your work. You can’t determine outcome — but you can determine to come and put in everything you have.

Let your joy always be in doing the work — not in the outcome of the work. The journey not only matters more than the destination — the journey actually becomes the destination.

Success is always showing up and bending down. Full stop.

Number Three: Don’t love your present self more than you love your future self.

...Though everywhere tells you the point of living is to avoid suffering — please: Always embrace the struggle:

You know there’s no way around pain — there’s always either the pain of disappointment or the pain of discipline.

And don’t ever, ever, ever be concerned with failing — only be concerned about failing to keep on going.

Get up every day and just do that: Volunteer to be a Giver. Never stop looking for a way to be the Giver. The world’s going around with a big sign: Wanted: GIVERS. (Sorry — The world already has enough takers.)

Be a Giver — and you will get the most.

People may forget what you did or didn’t do — but they won’t forget how you made them feel. Hearts have the longest memories. This is what makes you love people people and love life and never be intimidated in any setting: Lean in and make eye contact and simply listen to hearts.

Listening is a revolutionary act of liberation — it will liberate you from the prison of your prejudices and free you to love large.

It doesn’t matter if you have some big title — what matters is that you have a big heart. A big heart will outshine a big title every time.

Number 5: Watch your fingers so your heart can care.
Maybe the most important part of your body to control is your index finger — because it’s most like the devil: It most wants to point and prosecute.

At all costs — don’t be a finger pointer… and avoid joining packs of finger-pointers — who point and blame peers and parents and circumstances and society and somebody else.

The world doesn’t need any more finger-pointers.

It needs more people to honestly point out their own sins — and humbly point up to everyone’s Savior.

The world doesn’t need more loud people who think they have it all right — it needs more compassionate people to sit down and listen long enough to quietly realize they had some of it wrong.

The world needs people whose sacrificial giving is loudest and largest thing about them. People who quietly weep with the wounded and listen to the hurting and generously serve the Other — because that’s what it means to genuinely love one another: not to love people just like you, but to Love the Other.

The Givers and the Listeners and the Lovers — we can be part of His beautiful healing of the world….

So when you get to the end of the day, when you get down far down that road your on, when you get to wondering what it’s all about that — I don’t know, maybe it’s just this handful of 5 Brave and Beautiful Things I wanted to tuck in your back pocket in a world that’s hurting everywhere?

And maybe I just wanted to look you long in the eyes and memorize this in the midst of everything: Trust that Grace will always meet you.

Believe that when God made the universe, that He breathed Grace as the air of the universe.

When you believe that the earth’s atmosphere is actually Grace:

You aren’t afraid of people or asking questions or risking big or laughing loud or believing the best or believing in beauty or loving across fences or walking up to people and taking off your mask and making every step you take into a leap of faith.

Please, always: Believe that Grace will always, always, always meet you.

Because Grace has a name. And He always meets you. In everything, through everything, in spite of anything.

Grace has a name — and He always, always meets you.

So go on, keep going on, Braveheart — you are loved more than you know, liked more than you can imagine, and are stronger than you dreamed…. so: Give love. And live large — And love larger.

You can’t even begin to imagine how there’s always amazing grace up ahead.

Read more here.

Victimhood isn't the only response

In his USA Today column Glenn Reynolds writes about the actions of three American young men on the high speed train in Europe:

The purpose of terror is to terrorize. But responding appropriately has the opposite effect. The response of British businessman Chris Norman, who helped subdue the attacker, illustrates this: “Norman said his first reaction was to hide," The Fiscal Times reported. "But after he saw the Americans fighting the attacker, he said he went to help them.”

Fear is contagious. But so is courage. People should respond not like a herd of sheep but like a pack of wolves. When the follow-up report on the 2001 attacks came out, J.B. Schramm noted in The Washington Post that "on Sept. 11, 2001, American citizens saved the government, not the other way around.” Intelligence agencies failed. Air defense systems failed. But: “Requiring less time than it took the White House to gather intelligence and issue an attack order (which was in fact not acted on), American citizens gathered information from national media and relayed that information to citizens aboard the flight, who organized themselves and effectively carried out a counterattack against the terrorists, foiling their plans. Armed with television and cellphones, quick-thinking, courageous citizens who were fed information by loved ones probably saved the White House or Congress from devastation.”

Nonetheless, when the government reacted, the money went into enriching and strengthening those bureaucracies instead of, as Schramm urged, educating and training American citizens. Perhaps this latest incident will serve as a reminder that there is another way. At the very least, it should remind citizens that while you can’t rely on the government to be everywhere you are, you yourself are always there.

Read more here.

Opposites

Seth Godin is thinking today about opposites:

The opposite of creativity is fear.

And fear's enemy is creativity.

The opposite of yes is maybe.

Because maybe is non-definitive, and both yes and no give us closure and the chance to move ahead.

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Us is not the enemy of them. Us is the opposite of alone.

They can become us as soon as we permit it.

Everything is the opposite of okay. Everything can never be okay. Except when we permit it.

The right is not the opposite of the left. Each side has the chance to go up, which is precisely the opposite of down.

Dreams are not the opposite of reality. Dreams inform reality.

Is our fear and anger leading us to stupidity?

Andrew Klavan writes at PJ Media,

Why are Republicans supporting a man who, for all his millions, can’t even buy himself a decent hairpiece? Because he said something that sounded sort of kind of nasty about all the Mexican criminals pouring into the country and then refused to back down when the corporate left pulled its usual Frankenstein mob scene to shut him up.

Yoda is right. Our anger comes from fear. Fear of being bullied into silence. Fear of the IRS coming after us for our opinions. Fear of our businesses being destroyed by small-minded H8ers. Fear of a White House that finds myriad ways to harass and even imprison those who disagree with it. Fear of a media that lies and lies and lies, that covers up non-compliant reality in order to sell a left-wing narrative that will secure their sense of virtue and increase the political influence of their corporate bosses.

When a man like Trump seems to spit in the eye of the people we fear, we rally behind him thinking we’re fighting back. We’re not. We’re following our fear right down the rabbit hole.

You want to win back your country? Here’s how. Fear nothing. Hate no one. Stick to principles. Unchecked borders are dangerous not because Mexicans are evil but because evil thrives when good men don’t stand guard. Poverty programs are misguided, not because the poor are undeserving criminals, but because dependency on government breeds dysfunction and more poverty. Guns save lives and protect liberty. Property rights guarantee liberty. Religious rights are essential to liberty. Without liberty we are equal only in misery.

These things are true. They’re true for white people and black people, male people and female people, straight people and gay people. We should support the smartest, most proven, most statesmanlike candidate who best represents those principles. And we should do it out of — dare I say the word? — love. Love for our neighbors, our fellow citizens, white and black, male and female, straight and gay.

“Perfect love casts out fear.” That’s the word of #RealYoda, baby.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads… well, to stupidity really. That’s what muppet Yoda should’ve said.

Read more here.

He's "deeply offended and outraged!"

Andrew Wolfson writes in USA Today,

Jordan and Tommy Gray's 3-year-old daughter was watching SpongeBob Squarepants when two armed men broke into their home near Buechel on March 21, 2013, and robbed them at gunpoint.

Two years later, when one of the offenders was about to be sentenced, Jordan wrote in a victim impact statement that her daughter was still "in constant fear of black men." Both robbers were African-American.

"Whenever we are running errands, if we come across a black male, she holds me tight and begs me to leave," the mother said. "It has affected her friendships at school and our relationships with African-American friends."

Tommy Gray also wrote that since the crime, his daughter had been terrified of black males and that probation was not sufficient punishment for Gregory Wallace, 27, who had pleaded guilty to robbery.

The black judge was "outraged and deeply offended" that the child would stereotype black people because of an armed home invasion. Watch and listen to the judge.

Why ever be afraid of truth?

Ann Voskamp writes:

You only need fear the Truth of anything — if you think Christ isn’t capable of redeeming everything.

And if Christ is the Truth — then where there isn’t Truth, there isn’t Christ. Why ever be afraid of the Truth?

Do we ever have to be afraid of listening? Ann writes:

You never have to be afraid of just listening.

Because yeah, too many people treat listening like it’s only a pause before their own shock and awe.

Because real listening is really a radical act of humility.

Because when you let yourself humbly listen, you let yourself be ‘holy’ remade.

Because listening is how you plant resurrection — Lazarus’s ear had to first hear before he could rise up and walk out of the grave.

Read more here.

Tax day: time for some changes

Paying in envy, resentment, and entitlement. On this tax day, Mr. Virtual President Bill Whittle argues that it is time for a flat tax of 18% and for a balanced budget.



thanks to Adrienne for posting this video.

No fear

One of our female employees at work today was yelling, "Sir" repeated to a tall man as he was pushing his cart toward the exit. He pretended not to hear her, but everyone else could hear her fine. She finally caught up to him and asked if he had a receipt for his purchases. He told her that the machine at the self check out area did not give him a receipt. Another female employee heard him say that and told him to wait right there, while she went to check the machine. There was no receipt because he had made no purchases.

Meanwhile the first female subtley moved between him and the door. The second female returned to tell him why there was no receipt. He turned the cart over to the first female and left the store.

I told the first female that I admired her courage in confronting him, and that she did not show any fear. She said, "I'm not afraid of anyone. Fear just gets in your way!" Then she remembered that there is one person she is afraid of, a MMA fighter named Rhonda Rousy.

I told the second female how I admired her fearlessness. She said, "Why be afraid? If he hit me, I would get to go home...with pay!"

Give in to fear, procrastination, and intimidation? No!

Do you want to live a life of regret? Then you have to commit yourself to change behaviors that are not working for you. So says "Cappy."