Fear of social and political turmoil. Fear of COVID-19. A lunch friend of mine has just succumbed to the virus. The availability of a vaccine causes long lines and competition to receive it. A change of administration and uncertainty of the future can trigger anxiety. Lack of confidence in the media and a daily assault on our senses through 24/7 coverage of events and commentary and the posting of opinions on social media heightens our concerns. How can we manage sensory overload and find a measure of peace? I have avoided watching the news, have turned off my mobile notifications, and am reading a biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the writing of Kierkegaard on despair (Sickness Unto Death) and a review of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France by Gregory Collins, who quoted my undergraduate political science lecturer at Canterbury University, J.G.A. Pocock, as observing that Burke conveyed that civility created the necessary preconditions for commercial exchange. Collins concludes his article in the National Review (December 17, 2020) by writing that Burke’s most important lesson that is especially pertinent in an anxious age of social fragmentation is that “the depth of the soul lies beyond human measurement.” The ‘soul’, that understanding of us humans which relates to the spiritual, the eternal, and is not limited to the present, the temporal, the material, the political.

For my understanding of soul I go to my Bible. This morning I read 1 John 4:7-21.

“God is love and whoever abides in love, abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected in us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in the world. There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment and whoever fears has not been perfected in love…..”

That we may have confidence! That we may have no fear! Perfect love casts out fear! The only remedy for fear and the fear of consequences (punishment) – the only way we can have confidence (which is the opposite of fear) is to allow God to abide in us, for God is love and God’s love casts out fear.

To know that God is love and has loved us in Christ, and to open our being, our inner life to God’s love will cast out fear and give us confidence. This is the only remedy for social and political turmoil and viral contagion: God’s love in Christ who suffered and died for us and rose again to new life and controls the keys of death, who gives life to the world.

I am writing this in Asheville, North Carolina, where snow is gently descending, coming down from above and coating the earth. So we must let God’s love descend upon us and cover our fears, whatever they may be. I am reminded of the hymn by Bianco di Siena (1350-1434) :

“Come down O Love Divine. Seek thou this soul of mine and visit it with thine own ardor glowing;

O Comforter draw near, within my heart appear and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.

O let it freely burn, till earthly passions turn to dust and ashes in its heat consuming;

And let thy glorious light shine ever on my sight and clothe me round the while my path illuming.

And so the yearning strong, with which the soul will long, shall far outpass the power of human telling;

For none can guess its grace, till Love create a place, wherein the Holy Spirit makes a dwelling.”

May you find the perfect peace of the love of God abiding in you for that love casts out fear.

“When human wisdom cannot see a hand’s breath before it in the dark night of suffering, faith can see God, for faith sees best in the dark.” (Kierkegaard)