• About
    • Mission & Vision
    • Our Leadership
    • ADF: A Druid Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Services
  • Calendar
  • Resources & Social Justice
  • Membership
  • Blogs
    • Prairie Tidings (Church Blog)
    • Rev. Badger's 2019 Stoic Blog
    • The Practical Bard (Rev. Missy's Blog)
    • Little Druid on the Prairie (Rev. Lauren's Blog)
  • Policies
  • Contact Us
  • Blog
  • About
    • Mission & Vision
    • Our Leadership
    • ADF: A Druid Fellowship
    • Photos
  • Services
  • Calendar
  • Resources & Social Justice
  • Membership
  • Blogs
    • Prairie Tidings (Church Blog)
    • Rev. Badger's 2019 Stoic Blog
    • The Practical Bard (Rev. Missy's Blog)
    • Little Druid on the Prairie (Rev. Lauren's Blog)
  • Policies
  • Contact Us
  • Blog
Mountain Ancestors Grove, ADF

A Year of Contemplation

Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself (Day 252)

9/9/2019

 
Picture
Image Credit: Robin Wood (Tarot Deck)

But there is no reason to live and no limit to our miseries if we let our fears predominate.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 13.12b

We’ve all heard FDR’s famous sound-bite about, “... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself…”, right? Most folx have no idea the rest of the context of the statement, even though they can recite, from memory, the entirety of the Bene Gesserit’s Litany Against Fear from Frank Herbert’s Dune. Here’s the entire Roosevelt quote from his inaugural address, in context: 
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” - FDR
​Roosevelt, who came into power during the early days of the “Great Depression”, was determined not to let an already bad situation turn worse. He knew that fear was the one thing that could upset the entire apple cart, and as he was stepping into office, he told America what he thought about fear, and how he planned on handling fear. 

He’d not surrender and inch to fear. 

Fear, I like to tell my congregants, is an acronym: Fantasies Experienced As Reality. It’s from these fantasies which misery’s necessary delusions arise. Fear is the result of our imagination being hijacked and stolen by a cowardly ego. 

Fear makes us faint-hearted. Fear makes us fragile. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

Comments are closed.

    About the Blog

    Awakening the desire to explore Stoicism, and how it relates to his existing beliefs, Rev. William committed to working through the text, The Daily Stoic, a year-long journey to awaken the Stoic mind. 
    How things are structured can be found in the first post. 

    About the Author

    Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, Rev. William attended Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where in 2007 he graduated with a degree in Religious Studies, minoring in Psychology. Currently residing in Longmont, CO, he is one of the Priests and founder of Mountain Ancestors Grove.  He spends his time playing mandolin (and some guitar), writing, engaging in LGBTQIA+ advocacy and education, community service, and sharing a larger vision of how a polytheist perspective can lead to greater human understanding, acceptance, and gods be good, peace. 

    Archives

    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.