Canter Bridge

Only rarely does human language capture such a rich swath of reality in a short declaration as here:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

Human experience could almost be considered a fleshing out of this fundamental dogma.

Love possesses the potency of an exceedingly strong solvent, able silently to undo the blockings and cloggings-up that congest our private and social spaces when fear is the active ingredient. Love is not only not fear. It is the anti-fear. It is oil to fear’s water rather than ying to its yang. It expels fear, renders it inert, takes it off the table as a matter to be taken into consideration by sound minds and seeing eyes.

Where love reigns, one risks the ire of those who fear, knowing that fear can sting but no longer kill. Love not only prevails, it predominates, rending its fear-adversary lame by contrast, a has-been, a paper tiger, a bit of a pathetic clinger to shadows.

Love clears a space for good things to happen. It is the necessary if not the sufficient antecedent to blessing. Love encourages in the sense that etymology would give to the word, making hesitant people bold to speak and act in the milieu of love.

Remind us again, somebody, why we thought of love as a soft quality …