Picture of the week
Contents
Fear of the Unknown – Written by Ronald L. Riedell
Proverb of the week
Quote of the week
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Fear of the unknown
Mass media and social conditioning dictate my reaction to a situations. “Everyday I am bombarded with television news shows outside my sphere of influence. I have been conditioned to believe that these news stories are going to affect my life.
News stories that I have no control over. Selected world events projected in digital format that appear to be real and that create a mindless state of uneasiness and fear, because there is nothing within reason I can do to prevent similar events from happening to me.
I remember watching one such news story years ago, the moon landing . One quarter of the world’s population watched in an almost mesmerized state, astronauts walking on the moon. I myself, just a kid, believed someday I could go to the moon. In reality, I am one of 7.5 billion who will never leave the earth.
I am keenly aware of my surroundings , I believe as a result of my exposure to several years of media exposure where I heard about and watched people willing to martyr themselves for a cause.
Therefore, I was concerned while volunteering at the Cathedral in upstairs information booth a when woman came up to me speaking broken English, she wanted to know where she could by a phone card.
After I directed her to a local store, I went down to staff the plaza information booth . When I got there, I noticed one older suitcase and two large bags just sitting there all alone with nobody in site. I asked the other volunteer whose bags they were and he told me a woman from Rwanda that had left them there and went across the street,
He had picked up one the bags to move it out of the doorway and told me that it was heavy. Immediately, my mind thought the worst; that there might be some type of explosives in them!!!!
To make a long story short by the time I got up to security to report the bags, the woman had returned. After the fact, I was ashamed of myself for allowing an unfounded reaction to discount the judgments of people I trust and love.
However, in defense of my reaction the treat was real; not a fiction in a movie script. There were too many innocent lives at stake to ignore the possibility that something disastrous could have happened if I did not act.
Fear and mistrust, driven by the mass media, has brought me to a point where I have became ultra sensitive to security issues, but more importantly, and sad to say I have become callous to people I know and trust.
Proverb of the week:
Nobody is born wise. ~ African proverb
Quote of the week:
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed, is more important than any other one thing.
Abraham Lincoln
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Call Up Brother Ron "Seeking the Unknown G-d" 