The Sun Bay Paper Page 18 April 15, 2022 - April 21, 2022 As George Washington said: “We Must Never Despair” We are all capable of being frightened. One of the most powerful tools available to a human being is his or her imagination. But like many powerful tools, when used, imagination can be dangerous and demoralizing or enlightening and inspiring. We are hearing about COVID terrors and vaccine terrors. Each has the capacity to drive one to despair. Long COVID — the condition where one does not fully recover from having the disease COVID-19 — is being reported by increasingly large numbers of patients. Equally frightening are the conditions that may be brought about by COVID vaccine adverse effects. Most frustrating, perhaps, is the single fact that we know only a limited amount about either long COVID or vaccine injury. The data is still emerging and is only partially collected or categorized in the case of long COVID. Regarding vaccine injury, there is increasing evidence that vaccine injuries are often frequent, too often deadly, and are being suppressed to protect the COVID vaccine campaigns. Making matters worse, little is known about the mRNA mechanisms of action and overall effects of the vaccines that are being administered. They are new. The vaccines were not sufficiently tested prior to release in late 2020. What do they do? Can adverse effects last a long time? Can they be permanent? There are multiple serious early indications that the vaccines are the most dangerous ever administered and should never have been brought to market. But what I want to examine right now is how we emotionally respond to the questions, the incomplete information, the uncertainty, the betrayals, and the fear. In March 2022, we seemed to have a brief respite from COVID. Some emergency measures were lifted, spring was arriving in the US, and it seemed illness was receding. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Instead of anything related to COVID, we were caught up in having to consider the possibility — unbelievably — of a nuclear strike somewhere in the world. What? Then like a whiplash, COVID returned. April has arrived. COVID is breaking out again. In my small personal circle in upstate New York, my assistant and her family, and a contractor who has done work for his family and me have been sidelined with COVID just this week. A family member in Massachusetts called Saturday and said he and his partner have COVID. New York City celebrities from Broadway are at home with COVID,10 as are many power players and their staffs in Washington, DC. In China, there are increasing lockdowns. Shanghai is in a draconian lockdown, with starving residents taking life-threatening risks in order to find food.14 We are again reading about dreadful totalitarian measures being taken by the Chinese Communist regime to achieve (unsuccessfully and impossibly) “zero COVID. Yet we are given little or no information about COVID-19’s evolving variants, severity or death rates. Life is accompanied by the potential for fear because death follows life. As many others have said, none of us get out of here alive. And so, we are born with the promise that someday we will die. Perhaps even more profoundly, we are born naked and completely unable to do anything for ourselves. Peter Breggin says, “We are all born into fear and helplessness.” Current threats restimulate these childhood vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, we live in a fearful time. Those who seek to capture the world want us afraid. Fear and its sister, despair, must be resisted. How? Remember God. Ignore the naysayers and notice how many ways God appears in our world, promising a continuation of life after death and offering us basic principles by which to conduct our lives. It is during fearful times that we are challenged. God helps us to retain and express the best of our humanity. Embrace nature. God’s hand is ever-present in the many miracles of nature. Take the time to soak up the sunshine, watch a robin at work on a lawn, see a dandelion growing through a crack in the sidewalk, or notice the first wildflowers cropping up through the leaf litter of a woods. Notice the determination of life in all its forms to survive and thrive. All this helps comfort and quiet the mind. Walk a righteous path. That is my language. My husband speaks of living by one’s principles. For me, this means having rules of life that always guide me toward goodness and away from evil or evildoing. Tell the truth. Respect life. Love one another. Turn to each other. From birth, we learn that we need others to help us feel protected and whole. As we grow, we develop a balance of independence, allowing us to be self-responsible and the gift of remaining vulnerable enough to create the threads of friendship and family that nurture our need for connection and love. Love in all its aspects feeds the soul and provides emotional nurture. The antidote to fear and despair is both very simple and deeply challenging. We can move through our lives fearfully, dismissing attempts at rational thought, and blindly follow those leading and ordering us forward. Or we can embrace with all our might the human tools available to us to overcome fear and despair. See and hear God when He moves in our lives. Recognize the tenacity of life in all its forms. Live by your principles and make sure they are morally sound, embracing truth and life. Love one another. Don’t ever sell life short. A great and aged maple tree over 100 years old on the side of our street was blown down one summer by a storm. Only a stump remained after the city came and cleared the trunk and branches from the road. That stump was just six inches above the ground. Over the summer, shoots began to appear, and soon dozens of branches were emerging from the roots around that trunk. As I walked the dogs each day, I watched them grow and then leaf out until what had been a dead trunk became a maple bush. Never give up. Never give in. (immortal words) Don’t let the fearmongers drive you to despair. There are miracles in this world. Find them. In the words of George Washington, America’s first President: “We must never despair; our situation has been compromising before, and it has changed for the better, so I trust it will again. If difficulties arise, we must put forth new exertion and proportion our ef forts to the exigencies of the times.” Peter Breggin MD and Ginger Ross Breggin
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