After a frightening encounter with anger
slipping into hate, the man opened his
email to be greeted by love in the form

of meditations — the first written by
a friend acknowledging that right now
we are a nation in fear and stating that

“perfect love perfectly casts out fear” —
“perfect” being closer to “complete”
than the highest quality of achievement

as in a perfect grade or perfect score —
a reflection of our competitive society.
The second meditation spoke of God as

love — love as a verb, therefore, God as a
verb — love in action — complete love
loving completely and enabling humans

to love at all however imperfectly. The
third meditation concluded, “…fear keeps
us prisoners, even when the prison has no

walls! I see better every day how radical
Jesus’ message of love really is.” Then
there was the e-mail from a friend telling

of a diagnosis of cancer and asking for
prayer. The man, feeling the fear in the
note, sent a message back to those in

fear, “You are in our hearts,” for the
heart is the place of courage, where
Love resides and abides — all these

in the morning mail, sent graciously
as a gift by Love to the man who had
experienced deep, deep fear.