Lesson from Fear

History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

 Maya Angelo

I took a walk on what felt like the surface of the moon this week, out in the middle of the desert with not a sound but the grinding of gravel as I walked. This is Topaz or what's left of it. Topaz was one of the Japanese internment camps created after Pearl Harbor. A couple of weeks ago I walked through a small museum on the camps but I wanted to go out and see it. There is not much left. Lots of rusting metal and old foundations with signs telling of what once what there. The compound was well organized but with meager resources to defend against the elements even for its time. The site isn't particularly well maintained and no visitor center is there. Even the small museum in town feels incomplete in describing what happened here.

While walking the streets the thought came to me: "This is what fear can do." Fear created mistrust towards a whole race of mankind. Fear imprisoned mothers who sons fought defending that very same country that incarcerated them. Fear. Nothing good was created or decided in fear. To contrast this, a monument stands at Kitty Hawk, home of the first flight by the Wright brothers, which declares that feat was, "...achieved by dauntless resolution and unconquerable faith."  Faith not fear. Fear erects barbed wire fences. Faith conquers the skies. Fear limits our vision. Faith yields proper perspective. Fear hates. Faith loves. Fear quits. Faith brings the miracle.

 That lesson is easily forgotten like this field in the middle of the desert lies apparently forgotten. If  faith and courage are chosen to move forward then is learned the lesson of Topaz. Choose faith over fear, courage over fear, trust over fear, forgiveness over fear, patience over fear, kindness over fear. Fear is not God's tool and if its not His then whose is it?

 

"Profound fear will eventually pervade this perplexed planet. Would that mankind could live in faith, not fear—and with gratitude, not forgetfulness."

Elder Neil A Maxwell