Fear Itself
In famous words, Franklin Roosevelt said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I was reminded of that today as I watched the news coverage of the foiled plot in Britain and then listened to an airline safety expert on the radio.

• We have fear that an airplane we are on will be the target of a terrorist attack.
• We have fear that our way of life is being challenged and changed.
• We have fear that we will lose civil liberties in the quest for safety and security.

I agree with the underlying message of President Roosevelt’s quote, when we become a people of fear we have already lost. We are no longer the people we can be. Fear can be crippling. It is based in the most primitive part of our brain and no amount of logic can ever completely unseat it. It comes from the old “Fight or Flight” response. We either want to run and hide (flight) or get angry and strike back (fight.) These are natural but can be destructive as well as healthy. When our flight is to get us out of harm’s way, that’s good. When it pushes our head in the sand, not good.

When our fight response motivates us to stand up for who we are, our rights, our way of life, our freedoms and to find new ways to catch the terrorists, we are on the right track. When we go overboard and see enemies under every tree or in every person we don’t know, we have lost our way and the fight will become destructive. Those are the ways we often respond. Flee or fight.

There are actually two other responses. They are freeze or flow. Freeze is to become paralyzed. Stopped in our tracks. When fear overpowers us, overwhelms us to deeply that we don't know what to do we stop. We are frozen. At that point we can become the victims of o ur own fear. We lose hope and direction and any sense that anything can work out. We may voice anger - or nothing. We may feel rage - or nothing. In any case we feel so powerless that we lose any sense of being able to live our lives.

Flow may be the healthiest response to situations like we face today for most of us. Put it into perspective and understand that what we are talking about today is a threat, but one that very few of us can do anything about- and which as things go- very few of us will ever experience directly. If we allow the fear to force us to run scared or fight in anger when we aren't in a position to do either, we have lost. To flow- to go with the flow- is to live the Serenity Prayer.

This famous prayer, written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in 1943 says what we most need to have said in our lives as individuals when fear threatens us. It was written in the middle of World War II at a time when things may even have looked the darkest for the Allied forces. It was written by a great man who was never frozen, was always willing to fight for what was right, even if it meant to go to war. Yet he knew it was essential to be sensible and to stay focused. It was- and is- a necessity to know where, when, and how to expend your resources and energy and then to let the rest be in God's hands.

Thank God the British intelligence has done what it could do. We need to be able to go with the flow.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.