Fear of the Unknown
Ordinary Time
We fear the unknown more than the known. Even if the known is not favorable and frightening, we know how to deal with it and so hold on. Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t know.
The pending presidency of Donald Trump fills many with free floating anxiety. As a president he is an unknown. There are those who think he is precisely what America needs. They look with great hope at his presidency, thinking that as a business man he will be able to improve the economy. Others predict a disaster beyond compare. I suspect it will be something in between.
As someone who is old enough to remember when Ronald Reagan won the presidency and the predictions of disaster back then that never happened, I’m not as concerned as many by this new president. On the one hand, the president has a lot of power, on the other he is limited in that power by having to deal with Congress and other checks and balances. I’m sure previous presidents would have wanted to do more than they did if they had not been constrained by Congress. No president gets all of their agenda.
There are always unknowns when a new leader takes office. Because Donald Trump has no political track record, we know even less about what he will be like as president than previous presidents. And so we are left in the unknown, not a place we like to inhabit, but eventually the unknown will become known.
Fear may be part of our everyday experience, but we don’t have to let it run our life!
You shall not fear the terror of the night nor the arrow that flies by day; Not the pestilence that roams in darkness nor the devastating plague at noon . . . Because you have the Lord for your refuge; you have made the Most High your stronghold. Psalm 92:5-6, 9
This post is part of a series of reflections on the Church year. click here to follow blog
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