Manchester bomb

Fear isn't just around the corner. It's always there on the periphery of our vision. Maybe life's meaning is found in overcoming fear. In the beginning God saw everything and it was good. But at the first opportunity, Adam and Eve were disobedient and immediately were afraid and hid themselves. I don't read this as literal history but as myth to explain the human situation. Throughout the Bible, again and again, we hear the words "do not be afraid".
Fear is what keeps us in unsatisfactory jobs or unhealthy relationships. It stops us exploring the world or experiencing unfamiliar situations. It holds us back from emotional commitment. It makes us hoard today against fear of tomorrow, and in so doing we deny "enough" to another's now. It isolates us in retreat behind fences and locks. It holds us at a distance from our neighbours.
For some the fears are real. Real terror of violence, hunger, pain and loss. For some of us, it is an illusion. But either way, lives led in fear are unhealthy and stunted.
Anyone who uses fear to coerce another, adds to the mountain of pain. They act out their own fears and in so doing widen the net of misery and constraint. How many lives today have been diminished irreversibly by the loss or injury of a loved one? For now I am numb and can't process the information properly.
We weep for Manchester. For the young lives unforgivably stolen. For families ripped apart. For friends shocked and bereft. For witnesses who will be shaped for all time by trauma and survivor's guilt. We weep. What else can we do today?
Maybe tomorrow the fury.
But never give in to the fear. The fear is what will stifle us all.
I don't know yet what the alleged purpose or agenda was. But when it emerges it will make no difference. What remains is this: innocents were used as expendable currency for someone else's aims. More lives were stolen than the children who died. Their families will never recover. But we must not hand over our entire society as hostage to the fear this barbarism generates.
In deep love and inseparable communion with all affected.




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