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Good morning. Within a couple of days last week, countless stories on the etiquette of hugging were replaced by fear that the Government roadmap would be disrupted by the spread of an Indian variant. So the joy of some restrictions being lifted today comes with a renewed emphasis on the race between vaccinations and the virus.

As a child I remember road maps. On our annual summer holiday, the seemingly eternal car journey from the North East to Bournemouth was accompanied by two fears – someone needing the toilet between service stations and the sight of a traffic jam ahead. The latter would lead us to get the map out and find a different route, accompanied by Uncle Billy accusing tractors or caravans for clogging up the A1. The result was an attempted diversion along country roads, adding hours to the journey and incidentally well away from any service stations!

People respond to fear in lots of ways – sometimes with panic and sometimes by blaming others. In a new book, A State of Fear, Laura Dodsworth talks with people impacted by fear and isolation during the pandemic and suggests that at times fear was leveraged by those with power in the attempt to improve people’s behaviour. Noting the dangers of fear, she calls for a more hopeful and transparent way of changing the world.

When Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel says ‘do not be anxious about your life’ it is based on the hope of a creator God who is active in the world and who loves all, despite the immediate circumstances. But then I am struck that he goes on immediately to caution about not judging others. No doubt in the coming days, difficult decisions may have to be taken but fear unchecked can cause us to be selfish and blame the other.

In opening his inauguration speech at the peak of the Great Depression, Franklin D Roosevelt asserted his ‘firm belief….that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself’. Now telling people not to fear can be the equivalent of the ‘don’t panic’ of Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army. For those whose livelihood is threatened yet again or who are exhausted by the challenges of mental health and loneliness in the pandemic such words can sound hollow. But Roosevelt went on to outline a plan for jobs and economic growth and give a biting critique of selfishness in public life. And it is interesting that he took his oath with his hand on the family Bible open to 1 Corinthians 13, a passage which talks about the priority and prevailing nature of faith, hope and love.

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