It’s the televised Geico insurance ad that refuses to die.
If you’ve not seen it by now, then you’ve done a wondrous job of avoiding network television in America throughout the year 2020. Congratulate yourself and scroll down to some other post.
The reason I’ve chosen to write about this commercial ad featuring the narrative, “people in horror movies make bad choices,” is that I view it as the perfect metaphor for American life in 2020.
The question is not whether or not we have a “fear problem” to face here in 2020’s year-long Halloween monster show. It’s whether we’re going to get in the running car parked nearby, or…………make a run for those chainsaws hanging over in the opposite direction and use them as a safe place to hide behind. Even though a chainsaw murderer awaits us on the other side.
Decisions. Decisions.
Now I happen to believe that love is the perfect antidote for fear but ONLY if we’re afraid of the right thing. If we’re afraid to get in the running car parked nearby, then I don’t think love is going to help us out here. Love only works to overcome fears that are reality-based, and not those that turn out to have been only imaginary.
Here, then, is my list of fears that love, per even I John 4:18, is powerless to cast out.
· Fear of trusting foreign victims of poverty and violence from entering our nation safely for asylum to gain employment doing tasks our own citizens cannot or will not do.
· Fear of trusting medical scientists (specializing in virology and immunology while serving our Public Health departments) when it comes to ALL THREE W’s of wearing face masks that securely cover mouth AND nose, watching for safe social distance, and washing hands frequently.
· Fear of trusting climate scientists in our public universities, National Weather Bureau, NASA and the like who all interpret decades of exhaustive data confirming that our human use of fossil fuels to produce energy is causing the precise climate change that is burning our forests, flooding our rivers and melting our glaciers.
· Fear of openly saying “Black Lives Matter,” or saying white males are privileged to avoid the same prejudice, discrimination and police threats black and brown males are born with.
· Fear of helping the needy by raising their employment income enough to place them above the poverty line, and by securing their unemployment income enough to prevent hunger and homelessness.
· Fear of taxing the greedy by raising their income and inheritance tax rates.
· Fear of a guaranteed public health insurance option, such as Medicare or Medicaid, that everyone can afford to buy into.
· Fear of family planning services and contraceptive resources that are provided free of charge to those who choose not to raise another child, lowering the rate of abortions more than any other attempted methods including laws of prohibition.
· Fear of free public education for all of our potential workforce.
· Fear of banning military-style rifles from use by American hunters and homeowners.
· Fear of government regulations to protect consumers who, say, have to breathe actual air and drink actual water, from having to consume toxic chemicals in that process.
· Fear of majority rule and democracy, or fear of universal voter registration and universal balloting and the application of available technology to guard against fraud.
· Fear of using our Corrections system to correct adjudicated felons by means of rehabilitation proven most often to work, instead of punishment proven most often to NOT.
These are some examples of imaginary fears that love CANNOT cast out nor convince us to leave behind. They are the type of fears that cause us to instead cast out love and convince us to leave love behind. These are the fears that cause us to doubt love. And instead imagine that love is too good to be true, too easy on our enemies, too expensive to pay for, too politically correct, too effeminate, too naïve, too educated, simply too liberal, or too radical. Maybe even too Jesus.
As Halloween 2020 approaches, and coincides with America’s political election, fear is most definitely in our national spotlight. We will either choose to seek and accept love’s protection, or we will choose to doubt love’s ability to save us.
We will soon choose to either get in the running car or else hide behind the chainsaws.
Happy Halloween everyone! And Happy Election! In the perpetual contest between fear and love, love wins because people make good choices. "It's what you do."