What is the antidote to fear? Love seems obvious. But love, as generally understood, requires a striving or a strength that we perceive as beyond our power. What then? We are left with fear.
So do not try to love to counteract fear, which would make it our achievement. Rather start with amazement. Begin with awe.
Just stand there and marvel at miracles: strangers helping each other, children playing amid adversity, individuals laughing while crying. Witness what we did not expect to see: how people and places we thought we had figured out surprise us.
Then wonder will work on us. Our hearts will open. Our vision will expand. We will see beyond fear, beyond division, beyond disappointment to the wholeness that somehow is already here. We will see beauty.
That’s when love will come to us as grace. We will discover that our capacity to love is a gift, and we will know the gift is always enough, even amid fear.