Ann: Hey guys, would you be kind enough to weigh in on where fear fits in to the concepts of good and evil?
"Fear cannot be allowed to rule Divinity or we are all lost."
Richard Burton: John, why don’t you begin since you started this with your post on the topic?
John McCain: Happy to. Fear is the emotion we all feel when threatened. Sometime we can overcome it, sometimes not. But the point is that fear is secondary to bridging of the gap between this life and the next. To the extent we can put fear on the back burner and concentrate on the mission we have come to serve, we are on our intended journey. My mission was to suffer, be redeemed and then fall many times from grace in order to finally achieve a limited understanding.
I was widely hailed as a hero, but nothing could be further from the truth. I was drowning in fear almost every minute of every day when I was held by the Viet Cong. What kept me sane or close enough to still functioning was concentration on my comrades in arms, my mission to stay loyal, to be their support, to allow them to be mine, and for all of us to represent a country whose values seemed to be the antithesis of those I served, men turned into animals by horror and overriding fear and rage. But the immediate mission that held me together was my understanding that I would be less than nothing if I let them down. So fear was great but love was greater still, and for me that love was personal to each one of those boys who suffered as I did. After that, fear could not rule me.
Richard?
RB: John, I cannot claim anything approaching your gallantry in bearing such horror, but I understood fear. Fear of the mines, fear of failure, fear of ridicule, and fear of the unknown. I guess when not crystalized in compelling circumstances, fear moves into wherever we live and tries to find a toe hold. I fought fear with the conviction that I would be nothing if I gave in to it, and so I moved forward every time they said I was finished.
My internal demons never left me, but I could not allow them to expand to the exclusion of the soul that my Father had created in me. Though my mind would not recognize Him, my soul always knew its Creator. Despite my denials, I carried withal love and reverence for Source, gratitude for the gifts I had been given, and the obligation to do right by them in one way or another. I chased my self-worth down a million rat holes, but, when push came to shove, I had to stand up or become that most reviled of mortals, the coward who pulls in only to serve himself. My children, my loves, and most of all my gallant family of origin hung in the balance, and I could not let them down by giving in.
JMcC: So we both kept fear at bay to serve what we loved. In writing that post on good and evil, I did not intend to frighten readers into foxholes. Instead, I hope that looking clearly at what we confront and what we have to lose will put some jumping powder into all of us who are inclined to look the other way. I might have been one of these but for the experience seared into my body, mind, and psyche by 5 years of hell.
Richard, may I be so bold to say, could not give into his demons because his family, his loved ones and his God had created in him an unassailable conviction that to give in was to deny their value and their worth. So he fought on to the end and laughed in the face of the demons that tried to play him for a fool.
RB: Thank you, John, but I can’t claim to that elevated motivation at least not consciously. I just knew that I would not and would not surrender. I could not admit of a Divine Source and, therefore, could not claim a champion whose values I could defend so I used what I thought were my own, to wit, honesty, integrity, acceptance of the human condition that keeps us all on a level playing field. And then when I passed I was shown why I fought the good fight though traveling blind.
Fear cannot be allowed to rule Divinity or we are all lost. This is why your post is so important. Ladies and gentlemen, pick your side and serve it with your last breath, feel your fear and put it behind you. We have no time to waste.
JMcC: Amen.
December 2, 2019
All blog entries are works of the imagination and are for spiritual and entertainment purposes only.