Another Fourth of July and our country is poised between hope and fear. Fear looks like a tumbling stock market and soaring fuel prices. Hope is found in an election between one person who rose from the hell of war and another who rose from the deep discrimination that has divided our nation for most of its history. One can imagine people in cafés and water coolers focusing on either phenomena with all the attendant emotion that surrounds each.
Where do your eyes go in these moments of transition? Do you see things as winding down or as an opportunity for transformation and transcendence? Do you imagine diminishing resources, declining health and increasing challenges as signals of doom or do you see some power that is urging and agitating for the advent of something new?
In reality we are always poised between hope and fear. We are always on the precipice of the future, gazing over the edge with anxiety or expectation. The difference is where our faith is to be found. With faith that the Reign of God is constantly breaking in, we might identify with St. Paul’s idea that even as our body declines the inner person is being made stronger by the grace of God.
Jesus tells us not to be anxious, but is this possible? I believe it is only possible when we are able to apprehend a deeper plan than that which meets the eye. It is only when we live with faith that life becomes a journey towards wholeness and reunion with God. It is only when the eternal promises become activated in our consciousness that we understand change is necessary in order to realize these promises. Even death is not to be feared (the message of the resurrection). From the perspective of faith we have the opportunity to experience the eternal, that which transcends our mortal existence.
So we have a choice, faith or fear. With faith we eagerly look for signs of change, images of transformation and intimations of immortality. With faith we wake up in the morning wondering how we can help others participate in this kingdom of hope and love. With fear, we seek escape, we succumb to cynicism and suffer the fate of a self fulfilling prophesy of doom.
This Independence Day, I call you to make yourselves independent of anxiety by embracing faith. Not just a faith in the doctrines of the church, but a profound existential faith that teaches you how to live with the power to love and the strength to heal a rapidly changing world. With faith every day is Independence Day, independence from the oppression of fear.
