Spiritual Quote of the Day (Reinhold Niebuhr, on How Envy and Fear Produce Hatred)

“The irresponsibility which power creates corrupts judgment and accentuates the natural tendency toward selfish conduct. Meanwhile the special privileges which the powerful always claim for themselves excite the envy, as their power prompts the fear, of those who deal with them. When envy and fear are compounded they produce hatred. If this hatred in the hearts of the weak is frustrated for a time by their impotence, it usually united them into a confederacy of power in the end.”—American Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), “Perils of American Power,” originally published in The Atlantic Monthly, January 1932, reprinted in The American Idea: The Best of “The Atlantic Monthly” (2007)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (bell hooks, on Fear and ‘Cultures of Domination’)

“Cultures of domination rely on the cultivation of fear as a way to ensure obedience. In its rhetoric such a society makes much of love and little of the pervasiveness of fear. Yet we are all so terribly afraid most of the time. Fear is the prevailing culture force that upholds structures of domination.  Fear promotes the desire for separation, the desire not to be known. When we are taught that safety lies with sameness, then difference will appear as a threat.” — Author, academic, feminist and social activist bell hooks, “Love’s Alchemy,” in Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited, edited by Rick Moody and Darcey Steinke (1997)

The image of bell hooks accompanying this post was taken Nov. 1, 2009, by Cmongirl.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Jack Miles, on the Three Great Vices, Fear and Love)

“Saint Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians speaks of three great virtues—faith, hope, and love—but, he insists, ‘the greatest of these is love.’ The three vices to which these virtues are opposed would seem to be doubt, the opposite of faith; despair, the opposite of hope; and hatred, the opposite of love. But behind hatred, even ostensibly livid hatred, what you find so often is buried fear. Once we face down our fears, we discover at least sometimes that those we feared were fearful of us. And as the fear subsides on either side, it is—at least sometimes—as if the love that was always there, lying dormant, waiting for its chance, wakes up and starts to sing.”—Pulitzer Prize-winning religious author Jack Miles, “Lessons From an Unwritten Autobiography,” The American Scholar, Winter 2022

(The image accompanying this post, showing Jack Miles, was taken Aug. 24, 2016, by Louis Pescevic.)

Quote of the Day (Shirley MacLaine, With a Realization From Her Travels)

“The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” —Oscar-winning actress and dancer Shirley MacLaine, Don't Fall Off the Mountain (1970)

(The image accompanying this post is a studio promotional photo of Shirley MacLaine, taken in 1960.)

Quote of the Day (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, on Politics, Fear and Folly)

“In politics, what begins in fear usually ends in folly.”—English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Specimens of the Table Talk of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge (1836)

 

In the U.S., what began as one man’s fear—that warning citizens to take elementary precautions against a pandemic might damage the stock market and, hence, his electoral prospects this November—led not only to folly, but also tragedy: an economy that, despite his wishes, crashed anyway—and now, more than 110,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Christina Rossetti, on How ‘Hope is the Counterpoise of Fear’)

“Hope is the counterpoise of fear

While night enthralls us here.

Fear hath a startled eye that holds a tear:

Hope hath an upward glance, for dawn draws near

With sunshine and with cheer.

Fear gazing earthwards spies a bier;

And sets herself to rear

A lamentable tomb where leaves drop sere,

Bleaching to congruous skeletons austere:

Hope chants a funeral hymn most sweet and clear,

And seems true chanticleer

Of resurrection and of all things dear

In the oncoming endless year.

Fear ballasts hope, hope buoys up fear,

And both befit us here.”—English poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), “Hope is the counterpoise of fear / While night enthralls us here,” from The Complete Poems, edited by R. W. Crump and Betty S. Flowers (2001 edition)

I took this picture nine years ago while on vacation at the Chautauqua Institution, a village in upstate New York where vacationers are likely to see thousands of day lilies and other flowers bloom all around. A flower feels like an appropriate symbol of hope these days—both for our survival in this time of crisis and for the ultimate deliverance promised by Jesus through the Resurrection.

Quote of the Day (Mary-Louise Parker, on Fear and Bravery)

“My daughter made an amazing jump in the pool the other day. I said, ‘You're so brave.’ She said, ‘No, I was scared.’ I said, ‘That's why you're brave. If you weren't scared, you wouldn't be brave at all. You'd just be dumb.’" —Actress Mary-Louise Parker quoted in Cal Fussman, “Mary-Louise Parker: What I've Learned,” Esquire, January 2011

Quote of the Day (St. Peter of Alcantara, on Fear and Courage)

“Our fear increases if we fly from it, while our courage grows stronger as we resist.”—Spanish Franciscan friar St. Peter of Alcantara (1499-1562), Treatise on Prayer and Meditation

The image accompanying this post is a painting of St. Peter of Alcantara by Luis Tristan de Escamilla (1586–1624), at the Museo de El Greco, Toledo, Spain.