Our country has been plunged into fear, more biting and bitter than this winter’s polar vortexes. It shouts as disagreements dissolve into insults.
My congressman recently sent a one-line survey that unnerved me because I realized he might be gathering a list of people to surveil. The first amendment guarantees our rights to free speech, but how strong is it if the FBI shows up at a person’s doorstep, swat team in tow, to take them into custody for expressing a sentiment that might be termed insurrectionist?
What has happened to us where an ordinary citizen, a little too obsessed with political happenings, is afraid to be honest with her own congressman? A friend says people she talks to on the other side of the aisle say the same thing. The fear bites so hard, it feels more real than paranoia.
Then I remembered how St. Paul, chained in a fetid prison, sang hymns into the darkness. He says, “Do not get drunk with wine…but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs…” What if psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are the antidote to this bitter, bitter fear that is flooding our country? Would a community sing along be a way to push back? To find our joy? Beer and Hymns already thought of this. Let’s find a brewery, some musicians and gather together. What better way to bark back at the darkness. https://beerandhymns.com
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
