One of my clearest of few early memories is that of a little me, a very petite, enraged six-year-old, standing, dressed as a ghost (white sheet), posted in front of our main windows (nose on the glass), on Reno Road, Washington. D.C.,  watching the trick-or-treaters file by, defiantly present in the gathering darkness and the considerable rain.

How my little heart trembled and yearned to be out there with them! I was ready to go, tucked into my silly sheet with the holes for eyes, but Mama said no, citing the weather. She was most likely more worried about tiny me going out there -- with my stature and my fragility. She was, as mothers usually are, right to protect me. She was ‘afraid’ — but not for herself; for me.

Being afraid on behalf of others is a good thing. Protecting others is a good thing. Channeling our fears into a charitable awareness of the dangers ahead for people is the kind of actionable fear that we can embrace without guilt.

Conquering fear is a relative act. The more we succeed in it, the better off the outcome will, necessarily, be. 

The right kind of fear is wise and strong. That’s the kind of ‘fear’ we need right now. Not the crippling political fear that just prompted Mr. Bezos of the Washington Post to decline, ‘historically,’ his paper’s endorsement — of anyone -- for president.  Not the indiscriminate fear that prompts Harris and her ‘legions’ to politically demonize Trump with ‘Hitler” and ‘fascism.’ 

Those are instances of the Left’s increasingly disabling ‘things that go bump in the night’ type of rampant fear.

Yes, the Left is very, very afraid, and stumbling around in their signature ways. What can we counter with, as they gear up to make the America people fearful as well? 

On this subject, Jesus had supernatural words, many and often, of great help; here are a few:

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.”  Matthew 10:29-31

So, there is also righteous fear, the kind that we need to use now, the kind that impels us to save our nation and that necessarily seeks God’s help to do so.

The mighty social/political warrior and Jewish prophet Isaiah also spoke of fear and its useful applications, often.

“Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought. For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.”  Isaiah 41:12-14

The highly popular and sympathetic philosopher Pope John Paul II also knew about fear from his personal, political trials. After a Turkish gunman shot and nearly killed him in an assassination attempt, he said:

“Be not afraid.”

According to the National Catholic Register:

These words would become a familiar refrain in his papacy, but in reality, they had long defined his life, and would so until his death in 2005. St. John Paul II was fearless.

When he defied the Nazis as part of the Polish cultural resistance, when he spoke tirelessly against the evils of Communism, when he forgave his would-be assassin, and when he spent his final years succumbing to illness, his courage never faltered.

What is faith, then, except that we will survive the awful and constant assaults on American liberty during the 2024 election final run-up? It can’t be the absence of fear, because we do fear, all of us do, to various extent, right now.

In that vein, I asked my husband, earlier this week, if we could skip our 2024 Halloween hosting?

Why didn’t I want to do the candy this year? It only takes a couple of hours or so, the costumes we see are fantastically humorous and creative. The kids are ecstatic. Many of the adults produce amazingly funny, some political, not-so-adult costumes for themselves, and encourage their children to say thank you, and not be greedy as little hands lunge into our basket.

My husband, wise as ever, insisted we do our part again this Halloween. He admits he doesn’t really want to, either; but we must.

After all, it’s only a few hours. We just sit by the front door, with our plastic lit pumpkin, our little table of sweets, and greet the trick or treaters as they arrive, singly and in clumps, some on roller-skates, in baby carriages, on motorized cycles -- just any which way. His reason? Our little semi-rural neighborhood -- a multi-racial, family, peaceful place — can be counted on for Halloween.

My husband argued well and briefly for Halloween 2024: “It keeps the community together.”  Just so. End of story.

So, why, really, did I try to punk out on Halloween, 2024? Because I am tired of the politics — the fear, the worry, the fury? Not exactly. Because I am currently afraid of things that go bump in the night: like voter fraud; like an even darker replay of the awful, nighttime reversal, very oddly late into the 2020 election night, of Trump’s clear presidential election triumph.

I am afraid of our forces of darkness. I pray and pray; that chases them off enough for sleep, eventually. The terrible lies and accusations against our poor bedeviled America — day after day. My weaker self courts fears of more suffering: can 2020 happen again; or worse? Those are questions I should not be asking myself: they go bump in the night, and in my head. In the real light of a dawning new day: that’s where our hope and our actions must lie.
 

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