This Fear

This Fear

We fear weapons of mass destruction,
the proverbial finger on the button.
We fear people who don’t look like us,
who wear clothing that is unfamiliar,
who speak words we don’t understand,
who worship prophets we’ve never heard of,
and call their Creator by names we do not know.

People die or kill to conquer and preserve fear,
but there are some things worse than death.
Fear is the weapon of mass destruction.
Fear is isolation from creative ideas,
ignorance that there are people we’ll never know
who just might teach us something, and it is this fear
that causes us to take up arms against our neighbors.

But who is the enemy, us or them?
Who really has their finger on the button?
Perhaps it is those who are afraid their people
just might know how to save themselves,
or those who are afraid their subjects
wouldn’t be so loyal to their leaders
without the threat of fear keeping them faithful.

Perhaps there isn’t one red button, one enemy,
but rather a series of decisions forming an environment
where fear dominates and creativity is put to rest.
Rather than conquering our imagined enemy, perhaps
we should conquer the fear inside ourselves.
Perhaps its time to take our own finger off the trigger
and ask ourselves and each other what exactly are we afraid of. 

Learning about another man's God will not destroy our own.
Learning new ideas will not empty our brains, only add to them.
Learning a new language will not render us speechless,
but will allow our voices to be heard. 
Learning how others heal their sick will not make us ill,
but we might find a way to save our own through this knowledge.
And learning to live without fear just might be the only way

to ignite the weapon of mass construction,
and spark the building of bridges to connect our cultures,
and the reconstruction of towns blown apart in our attempts
to rid ourselves of different ideas and cultures.
It might spark the education of our children to develop their gifts,
and the lighting of the fire of creativity within us all
to replace the destructive void we inherited, the void known as fear.

SWPoet