I call it the fear season. When I was a kid, I remember my mum would insist on me staying indoors during the 7th month. Every Chinese knows that’s the inauspicious month where if you aren’t careful, you will bump into those creepy creatures called ghosts, ghouls, bad spirits, whatever. No one in their right mind would want to meet them. I have not bothered about staying indoors during that month ever since I grew up and became a Christian. It’s not that I don’t believe in the devil anymore; it’s just that I am no longer fearful of things that I do not fully understand.
For the typical Chinese, it’s only that particular month
they ‘fear’. All other months are ok. But the way things are bumping around in Malaysia, it
seems not only the Chinese 7th month but every other day there is
something new to be fearful about.
If I read the news correctly, we are all supposed to be
afraid of the Sedition Act being abolished or retained, depending on what kind
of politics we subscribe to. And obviously all right-thinking folks are
supposed to fear a repeat of the violence of May 13th 1969. Sorry,
that doesn’t quite work with me, since I was just a 9 year old kid who didn’t
understand anything back then. Now if we throw good old-fashioned religion into
the melting-pot, we really have a lot to fear – extremism, liberalism,
pluralism, racism, sexism. That’s just for starters, lots more ‘ism-s’ can be
added as and when expedient to remind people what to fear.
Of course it goes without saying Christians are supposed to
fear using a certain word for God, even if that’s the word some of us have been
using since we knew how to talk. Incidentally there is a whole list of other
‘sensitive’ words that Christians should be afraid to use. The complicated part
for me is figuring out in which state I can or cannot use what word. For now,
it seems I don’t need to fear if I am in Sabah or Sarawak.
But I better watch my mouth if I am in Selangor.
But as if to balance the scale up, others are supposed to
fear Christians too. They are supposed to fear the building of more churches,
because the churches are going to suck everybody inside and brainwash them
into…zombies? Man, this ‘fear’ thing has
gone so far even touching a certain animal is a cause to be scared. It’s not
the building or the animal per se that’s to be feared; it’s the fear that these
things will cause one to ‘lose faith’ in one’s religion. Now that’s the ‘big
mother’ of all fears, besides the Zionist Jews, imperialist Americans, ebola
and kidnappers in Sabah.
Don’t even get started with the fear of others (meaning
everybody else who doesn’t join our party, or whose skin is not the same color
as ours) grabbing our….(special) rights, land, jobs, power, position,
contracts, language, schools…(yawn)..sounds like an old scratchy record being
replayed over and over again. Oh I forgot, records went out of fashion long
long ago.
Unfortunately the fear factor is always in fashion. So much
noise being made about this or that to fear.
If we would pause awhile in the midst of all our shouting at each other,
perhaps we can discern the real thing to fear is not this or that person, thing
or issue.The real bogey-man is the fear of fear itself.
I don’t want to feed my mind with fear. It’s a terrible way to live. As a kid, I
stayed imprisoned in the house because I feared all sorts of ghosts waiting to
catch me. That’s what fear does – it locks us up as prisoners of ourselves and
of others.
There is only 1 thing that defeats fear. To quote the Bible,
“There is no fear in love…perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). So
really the problem is not fear, but lack of love….
Now that’s a tough call. It’s so much easier to fear than to
love. But I guess I could do something simple for a start…. I think I’ll stop
reading the news for awhile, or just stick to the comics page. Then I don’t
have to bother about what else there is to fear. Or I could just learn to love
better.
Published MMO 30/11/14
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