Today, our St. Aidan's book group completed discussion of your book "Grateful". What perfect timing for us to read this considering your last few weeks of posts and the state of our political world. I encourage everyone to read Grateful" if you haven't, or read it again if you have. It is so full of Diana's wisdom to help us through a difficult time. Thank you, Diana.
This is a wonderful description of fear. For many years I have looked to you for spiritual enlightenment and ways for church’s to evangelize to the unchurched. Please keep politics out of your messages and avoid telling people how to vote. As thinking individuals, we have a choice, and will have to live with OUR choice.
“We are living during a time of complex and alarming challenges: the reality of racism, the suffering and grief caused by a global pandemic, and the near-helplessness we feel in the face of the climate crisis – all made worse by an uncertain election.” I think this is the most important sentence in your essay.
Naming the crises we face is important. Naming that which evokes fear makes the crises a little more manageable, make the fear a little less “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified,” transforming it to a fear that inspires action.
I suspect for many of us, the climate crisis is the crisis that is most difficult to wrap our arms around. There is a third response to fear. Fight or flight are most commonly named; there is also freeze. This is the fear response that doesn’t even evoke the action of fighting for fleeing. This is the ultimate non-action fear response.
When it comes to the climate crisis, “freeze” is often the response. The climate crisis seems so big, so complicated, so overwhelming that we do nothing.
The fires in the western USA are just one symptom of this crisis. There are currently a record-tying five tropical cyclones in the Atlantic at the same time. One of them (Sally) has all but stalled out on the Louisiana/Florida panhandle coast. Though “only” a Cat-1 hurricane, the fact that it is barely moving makes it a huge flooding threat. Meteorologists are talking about measuring the rainfall in feet instead of inches. And let’s remember that there are wildfires burning in the Arctic Circle, too. All of these are manifestations of the climate crisis.
So, I write the comment to echo your naming of this particular crisis, the climate crisis, in the hopes that by naming it, we will remember that we can all take small steps in our personal lives and that together we can apply big pressure on our governments—local, state, and national—to take big actions that will actually mitigate the crisis.
[Written from Fremont, California, where the air quality is, at least for the day, finally in the “moderate” range.]
Thank you for this. I am feeling all the fear, and I am doing better at some times than others at holding on to hope; hope that there are real things I can do here and now that are about truth and justice and God’s love. And that God gives me/us the gifts we need to do our part - like your gift of writing and sharing this today. Thank you.
Thank you, Diana. Here in the smoke and fires - things have felt so grim. No going outside at all, which has been our one source of comfort. Fear and terrible sadness. This helps me with the primal fear. All we smell is smoke, and all we see is smoky air.
As difficult it was for you to write your "Grateful" book after the 2016 presidential election, I have appreciated and gained much from what you wrote. You are now almost 4 years past that point in your life and your thinking. If you were to create a sequel to that book, what would you write now?
Thank you for this post. I think each of us as individuals, groups and churches need to find ways to either avoid the fear or turn it into the positive energy of service. I appreciate your article encouraging us to do so....
Isn’t it interesting that early in the efforts for Mr. Trump to win the presidency he began to undermine truth with his claims of”fake news,” even now a claim he uses to woo the public from reality? The link in this article between fear and truth is enlightening.
It is possible that the most insidious appearance of fear is when it is used as a weapon. Seeking to have control over other people through the promotion of internalizing a condition of fear creates a culture of victims, prone to reactionary behavior. The responsibility lies with each individual to realize this tactic and apply vigilance to protect themselves from such an invasion of integrity. Seeking peace must be a priority for violence to cease and the capacity to establish a condition of inner peace exists within every human being, overcoming the attempted manipulation.
Today, our St. Aidan's book group completed discussion of your book "Grateful". What perfect timing for us to read this considering your last few weeks of posts and the state of our political world. I encourage everyone to read Grateful" if you haven't, or read it again if you have. It is so full of Diana's wisdom to help us through a difficult time. Thank you, Diana.
This is a wonderful description of fear. For many years I have looked to you for spiritual enlightenment and ways for church’s to evangelize to the unchurched. Please keep politics out of your messages and avoid telling people how to vote. As thinking individuals, we have a choice, and will have to live with OUR choice.
“We are living during a time of complex and alarming challenges: the reality of racism, the suffering and grief caused by a global pandemic, and the near-helplessness we feel in the face of the climate crisis – all made worse by an uncertain election.” I think this is the most important sentence in your essay.
Naming the crises we face is important. Naming that which evokes fear makes the crises a little more manageable, make the fear a little less “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified,” transforming it to a fear that inspires action.
I suspect for many of us, the climate crisis is the crisis that is most difficult to wrap our arms around. There is a third response to fear. Fight or flight are most commonly named; there is also freeze. This is the fear response that doesn’t even evoke the action of fighting for fleeing. This is the ultimate non-action fear response.
When it comes to the climate crisis, “freeze” is often the response. The climate crisis seems so big, so complicated, so overwhelming that we do nothing.
The fires in the western USA are just one symptom of this crisis. There are currently a record-tying five tropical cyclones in the Atlantic at the same time. One of them (Sally) has all but stalled out on the Louisiana/Florida panhandle coast. Though “only” a Cat-1 hurricane, the fact that it is barely moving makes it a huge flooding threat. Meteorologists are talking about measuring the rainfall in feet instead of inches. And let’s remember that there are wildfires burning in the Arctic Circle, too. All of these are manifestations of the climate crisis.
So, I write the comment to echo your naming of this particular crisis, the climate crisis, in the hopes that by naming it, we will remember that we can all take small steps in our personal lives and that together we can apply big pressure on our governments—local, state, and national—to take big actions that will actually mitigate the crisis.
[Written from Fremont, California, where the air quality is, at least for the day, finally in the “moderate” range.]
Thank you for this. I am feeling all the fear, and I am doing better at some times than others at holding on to hope; hope that there are real things I can do here and now that are about truth and justice and God’s love. And that God gives me/us the gifts we need to do our part - like your gift of writing and sharing this today. Thank you.
Thank you, Diana. Here in the smoke and fires - things have felt so grim. No going outside at all, which has been our one source of comfort. Fear and terrible sadness. This helps me with the primal fear. All we smell is smoke, and all we see is smoky air.
BRILLIANT piece, Diana. Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom with us.
As difficult it was for you to write your "Grateful" book after the 2016 presidential election, I have appreciated and gained much from what you wrote. You are now almost 4 years past that point in your life and your thinking. If you were to create a sequel to that book, what would you write now?
Thank you for this post. I think each of us as individuals, groups and churches need to find ways to either avoid the fear or turn it into the positive energy of service. I appreciate your article encouraging us to do so....
Isn’t it interesting that early in the efforts for Mr. Trump to win the presidency he began to undermine truth with his claims of”fake news,” even now a claim he uses to woo the public from reality? The link in this article between fear and truth is enlightening.
It is possible that the most insidious appearance of fear is when it is used as a weapon. Seeking to have control over other people through the promotion of internalizing a condition of fear creates a culture of victims, prone to reactionary behavior. The responsibility lies with each individual to realize this tactic and apply vigilance to protect themselves from such an invasion of integrity. Seeking peace must be a priority for violence to cease and the capacity to establish a condition of inner peace exists within every human being, overcoming the attempted manipulation.