She was going to give a speech, Then decided not to meet the public. What’s so scary in Peace River to change this local girl’s mind? Read on to find out in this week’s edition of “Isn’t That Ironic?”.
Chrystia Freeland was going to give a speech to the Peace River Chamber of Commerce today. It turns out she’s a local girl—grew up in Fairview, just down the highway. Same town as Jordan Peterson, coincidentally. So I went to get a ticket, out of curiosity, only to find out she canceled the speech. She decided to just meet privately with the Chamber Board. What scared her off? As a politician, you want to reach as many people as you can.
I can’t speculate on the political machinations at work in our dysfunctional country, but there’s a spiritual lesson here—besides the obvious irony of making an official trip to Alberta to soothe the feelings of Albertans (half of whom want to secede from Canada) yet never actually talking to Albertans. I also don’t really know whether it’s fear or something else that caused our deputy prime minister to change her plans, but it’s hard not to think it’s fear of something.
Why do we fear things and how do we deal with fear? I have a parable about this in my new book, “The Band Director’s Lessons About Life”. (You can pick up a copy here.) The opposite of fear is love. It doesn’t seem intuitive. You’d think the opposite of fear would be confidence, or something like that. But as St. John says, “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 Jn 4:18). If you have perfect love, then you fear nothing—not disapproval, not disagreement, not secession, not physical harm, not even death.
Love is directed outward—to others. Love focuses on the other, not on the self—even to the point that the self doesn’t matter. Fear is directed inward—to oneself. Fear is not concerned about others, but about self. Note that I’m talking here about social situations, not the fear of being attacked by a bear or the fear of falling off a cliff. As an avid hiker in our Rocky Mountains, I’m been in these types of situations. But these situations are so rare that we can safely disregard them for the moment. Almost all the fear we feel is in relation to other people or to our own imaginations.
We imagine people hurting us or acting aggressively to us. I wonder what wild imaginings Chrystia Freeland has about what the good people of Peace River might do to her?
We are always better off if we imagine the best about people rather than the worst. As a schoolteacher I found that students usually lived up to my expectations of them. When I expected their best, that’s what I got.
For all of us, the more we can feel love for others, project love for others, manifest love for others, the more we will dispel fear from ourselves. Living our lives in a state of fear is what we might call “sub-optimal”. We really want to live our lives in a constant state of love. You might think that’s impossible. But I think it is possible and we should strive for it. That would be “optimal”.
Whatever nonsense the day’s political news brings, try to live your own life in a state of love. It’s a bit ironic, but focusing on selflessly loving others is the way to experience the most beautiful life for yourself.
God Bless You!
If you haven’t read my new book, check it out at my publisher (https://booklocker.com/books/10691.html) or at
You can also check out my website for a list of stores in Alberta that carry the paperback (https://www.cominghomespirit.com/books).