Fear Itself

I am amazed.

Shakespeare once wrote, "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad."

A woman in the local Walmart smacked another up side the head with a package of bacon as they fought over it.

Early on in "The Stand," Stephen King describes the chaos of abandoned vehicles and dead bodies blocking the entrance to the Holland Tunnel out of New York City as the super flu wiped out 90% of the population.

There is a city in Germany, Oberammergau, where the yearly performance of a Passion Play is credited for averting the Black Plague during medieval times.

"The wicked flee when no one pursues...."

Is this that?

I hear there was great fear over possible nuclear annihilation in the fifties when bomb shelters were being built faster than storm cellars in Tornado Alley.

Even many of the local churches are cancelling services over fear of infection.

We err on the side of caution, it is said.

What exactly is wise and cautious and when  (if ever) does caution become fear?

"May you live in interesting times," goes the ancient Chinese curse.

Odd, isn't it, that our main source of interest these days comes out of China?

I guess that's what you would call "irony."

"...but the righteous are bold as a lion" goes the second half of the verse quoted above.

I could use some of that righteousness now.

Not the "self" kind, but the kind that I can't come up with on my own.

Where would we get that, do you think?