Swine flu

One the plane I watched a couple of movies including "The Day the Earth Stood Still." I had seen the original many years ago and do not remember it very well. This new movie has a premise - presented by John Cleese in a cameo role - that human beings will be their best in a time of absolute crisis and near total collapse.

We have probably all heard of examples of this - life giving and journey changing examples of people who, at a moment of great crisis, have turned to their fellow human beings and said "your life is worth something to me" and often in that moment of giving sacrificed themselves for another.

But before that moment of giving - and the reason most of us never get there - there is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of our mortality, of being judged, of not getting what we thought we should or not finishing the task begun. When we are afraid our natural reaction is to hold on tight, to protect those around us, to push out and blame those we might see as enemies or as other than us.

I hope that this country - and the world - is not heading for a nasty pandemic - but if we are we need to realize that we are made for love not fear. Love casts out all things.

During the nineteenth century the Anglo-Catholic revival sent many priests into the slums of English cities - this patter was repeated in America. In 1866 there was a massve cholera epidemic - the records some of the priests kept are harrowing as they picked their way through tenement basements to tend the sick but found only the dead. To the left the revered Edward Pusey tended the sick during the outbreak.

A call to love is a hard thing to ignore - it burns like a furnace, it envelopes like the rolling sea. It changes who we are and how we can be.

It is foolish to believe that heroes are someone else - we all have a call to commonality - under pressure many of us will give. But what of life before that moment of crisis - can we give then - and in giving - allow love to conquer our fear?