“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  Franklin D. Roosevelt

Came about in a conversation.  Something of a verse of the bible and then this quote  about fear.  Both fear and sin get a lot of column inches in the Christian world – fear gets a lot of “column inches” everywhere.

Fear is an industry with a remedy – priced and marketed.   And the Christian world (does?) has marketed and priced a remedy now part of the “Christian tradition”.

The remedy?  Salvation.  Being saved.  Sins washed clean with blood.   Eternal life.  Live forever – no pain required.
The price?  Surrender to God.  Take up your cross.  Forsake much of what you thought was living.  Go to church every Sunday.  Be a good Christian.  Live for others.  Love everyone.

(and even as those words spill onto the page – I find my inner calm being shredded!)

Which may be why – when GSHJ and I were chatting – he slipped in a variation of that “fear quote” – and out of the blue I heard this:

“The only thing we have to love is love itself.”  

And has stayed with me since.

For I think that there is no remedy and there is no price.  And you will read and hear many who say there is a price – for it is the Christian tradition – that “Jesus already paid the price” so “you don’t have to.”  Which still leaves a debt of gratitude where none should exist (if that was true) – or why else this:

Surrender to God.  Take up your cross.  Forsake much of what you thought was living.  Go to church every Sunday.  Be a good Christian.  Live for others.  Love everyone.

And the remedy?  Why the need for a “remedy” at all … ?

Salvation.  Being saved.  Sins washed clean with blood.   Eternal life.  Live forever – no pain required. 

“Which seem to me like it’s back to “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, Paul.  Which does seem like circles within circles.”

And the more I ponder his re-quote, the more it seems to me we make “work” of loving and being loved – and that “work” comes with fear.  Fear of all that goes bump in the night.  So now we have to work at overcoming fear before we can love and be loved.  We need to overcome fear of sin, fear of sacrifice, fear of debt, fear of the unknown, fear of “not knowing” fear, fear of the wrong church (and fear of the “right church”).

“The only thing we have to love is love itself.”

Has no fear, has no remedy, has no price, has no debt, and has no work.  For there is only you and there is only me.  We each love already.  We each know love already.  We don’t need “to learn” how to love and be loved.  We need to learn how to be free to love love itself.

How do we do that (I hear you ask)  🙂

Maybe have a click on this link (and see below).

For I know there is no “remedy and price” – there is just allowing – allowing ourselves “to love love itself”.

Because just as we know love and being loved already – we each have an inner voice already – and we are already connected already (or why are you seeing this and I am seeing  you) …

So the connecting of our inner voices with others – and their inner voices with us – has no “work” – and no work to fear either.

“We are already connected”, Church Set Free

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