Article July 4, 1983 Issue

Defeating defeatism

MARJORY S. M. CERN

One evening I watched a number of aspiring actors and actresses give impromptu performances without any scripts. When the director called out a word such as fear, doubt, defeat, freedom, triumph, they portrayed the emotion or feeling. The portrayals were so persuasive that I was tempted to feel sad or jubilant according to the emotion conveyed. Finally I had to remind myself that they were only acting, that the feelings portrayed were not real.

How often in the human scene have we been assailed by fear, doubt, and discouragement? Maybe we have been enveloped by a defeated sense of being with no apparent solution. These depressing states of thought that would engulf us seem very real. How important it is to see them in the same light in which I finally saw the portrayals on stage. Just as the latter were not real feelings, fear, doubt, and discouragement are no real part of man.

Whatever seems to cause these deplorable states of thought needs to be routed out and proved powerless through truth-knowing as well as moral and spiritual regeneration. Perhaps chronic lack has discouraged us. What can we do? Christ Jesus gives us one answer: "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Luke 12:32. Here we see the Father as divine Love, blessing man. The awareness that God is infinite Spirit, our all-loving Father, caring for His idea, man, is a source of strength and has the effect of replacing fear with a quiet confidence that all is well.

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