FEAR...OR LOVE?

“Sin” – all the evil done by humankind – is at its core a result of humans trying to provide for their own safety, security, well-being and happiness at the expense of others.  Sin, or evil, springs from the root of fear – fear of not having enough.  Enough money, food, shelter, clothing or resources to survive.  Or enough power over others to be able to procure from them what seems necessary for personal survival.  All this to preserve the separate physical body that we have identified with. 

I love this quote from Eknath Easwaran over at Blue Mountain Center of Meditation:

To be truly secure, we must begin to find a source of security within ourselves. Even the bravest among us have many fears. Behind the attachment to money or possessions, for example, you will always find the fear of loss. Attachment to prestige brings the nagging fear of what others think of us. The thirst for power feeds the fear that others may be stronger. Every self-centered desire brings the fear that we may not get what we desire.

One could make a Sears catalog of these fears, but all stem from one fatal superstition: thinking of ourselves as merely physical creatures, separate from the rest of life. As our sense of oneness with the rest of life deepens, we step out of the world of fear to live in the world of love.

What would our world look like if we realized the truth of the interconnectedness and oneness Scripture pictures as “a many membered body” (1 Corin. 12:4-27), who are “members one of another” (Eph. 4:25)?   “That there should be no division in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another” (1 Corin. 12:25).  What would it look like if we actually lived the more excellent way of LOVE that Scripture goes on to describe in I Corin. 13?

Fear blinds to the truth that we are all connected and that what is done to one affects the whole.  Fear prevents us from seeing that when I harm my neighbor, I am harming myself, for if “…one member suffer, all the members suffer with it…” (1 Corin. 12:26).  Fear is what prevents us from living in love. What if we could set our fears aside and see the truth of the appeal to love our neighbors AS we love ourselves?  What a wonderful world that would be…the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.