courage

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”

 Franklin D. Roosevelt

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There are, I suppose

A lot of things to fear

For myself, I fear failure

I fear being unloved

I fear being irrelevant

Ineffective

And I am deathly afraid of being a person

who because of ideology

out of passion

out of a need to be right

out of a need to convince or change,

judges

wounds

diminishes another

I look around me and I see lots of people caught up in fear

People fear minorities

They fear losing power

They fear people of other creeds

And this fear

Consumes, and destroys

Compassion

And generosity

And love

It kills empathy

An in the end

It kills people

It kills people in churches in Sri Lanka

In mosques in New Zealand

In Synagogues  in California

It kills justice

And equity

It kills morality

It kills the soul and shrivels the Spirit

We see fear

We feel it

Are crushed by it

Every time a lie is told

Every time someone is called name

Or Excluded

Every time power is abused

Every time justice and equity are lost

Every time a child is caged

And a black person treated with brutality

We are in the house of fear

Trump is a fearful man

So are the so called militants on the border

So are the legislators who turn a blind eye,

When the rule of law is violated

So are those will do anything to grab hold of and keep wealth

There is only one antidote

The realization that there are things much more important

Than money

And power

More important that so called “winning”

More important than dominance

There is only one antidote

The knowledge that when all is said and done,

So much more is important than fear

Compassion

Generosity

Welcome

Inclusion

Forgiveness

Kindness

These are all more important than fear

And people

Always

Always

People