Paulson Post

 Aside from claiming many lives, the Covid-19 pandemic also affects the mind. People panic and dive deep into boredom. Cambridge dictionary defines panic as "a sudden, strong feeling of anxiety or fear that prevents reasonable thought and action and may spread to influence many people." Anxiety can be caused by real or imaginary perceptions of threat and harm. Panic is also a type of fear triggered by our perceptions. Perceptions that trigger panic may be present or absent. In addition, panic is especially undesirable because it prevents people from thinking or acting rationally. Panic impairs their ability to rationally think and act. Panic drives many people to explore tips about healthy living, avoiding, or managing Covid that are available all over the internet out of panic. There are many factors that cause panic during the pandemic. First, we are isolated by lockdowns, social distancing, fear of death, the loss of friends, etc. Suddenly, our support systems ha...

The literature on anxiety is aplenty. YouTube has a lot of advice from experts and non-experts on how to cope with anxiety. I don't want to add to these. What I offer here is a personal insight into the spiritual aspects of anxiety. Anxiety is a type of eclipse, like the lunar or solar eclipse. A lunar eclipse happens when the shadow of earth falls on the moon making the moon invisible to those on earth. But the moon is still there. It is still visible to the Martians! Anxiety works similarly. It casts our own shadow on God so that he becomes invisible to us. God is not in hiding but is hidden to our eyes because our own anxious self is casting the shadow on him. Then we blame God for hiding from us as the Psalmists often do in their prayers. God is not hiding, but we have made God vanish from our consciousness. That is why the Bible says 'Do not be anxious about anything!' This is very much in line with what Jesus taught: ' Therefore I tell you, do not...

Faith loves to perch on scarecrows. Scarecrows are placed in farms to scare the birds away. Birds avoid the farms where they find a scarecrow, even though the scarecrows only have a very remote resemblance to human beings and are unable to do any harm. The wise birds are wise enough to know that they are just hay for the body, a broken pot for the head and stay where the farmer placed them. They also know that wherever there is a scarecrow there is something to be eaten; nobody places a scarecrow where nothing is grown. Instead of being scared away they love to land on the scarecrows and enjoy the feast. That's the difference between faith and fear. The psalmist declares that when she is afraid she will trust in God (Psalm 56:3-4). "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. In God, I praise his word. In God, I put my trust." However, this faith makes her to challenge the frightening situations, "What can mortals do to me?" (Psalm 56:11 and also Psalm 56:...