September 29, 2008 –  I could almost feel the waves of anxiety pouring through the ether, from the increasingly intense media reports to the fearful e-mails. Suddenly, these seem to be frightening times.
  The publishing industry is nervous, along with everybody else, and it’s a challenging time to publish a new book. Other people’s worries seem more direct – jobs, savings, mortgages, retirements, medical problems.
  I’m not a political person, and I watched a bit of the news, which was nothing but grim and confusing. I think, in a way, these are testing times. Perspective seems important to me – taking note of things I am grateful for, lucky to have, and there are many of those. Troubles remind me of what is important, of what I have, of what others have suffered through.
  Also, of how I want to be. Frightening times challenge us, ask us to bring out the best, challenge us to find perspective and to see beyond the moment. In our country living one’s life is very tied to money. So is fear.
  I often think of Eugene O’Neill and the artists New York, who used to trek up to Cape Cod and rent cottages on the ocean for a few dollars a season and paint their pictures, write their plays and books and poems. They didn’t worry much about stock markets, pension funds, health plans or customer service. They produced wonderful work and understood the importance, I think, of being alive.
 Our lives are different – expensive, complex and stressful, and I suspect that almost everyone who is reading this is afraid of something when they hear the news out of New York and Washington.
  I am lucky to be in the middle of a book on Winston Churchill and Europe as World War II exploded over them, and the horrors in the book reminded me to take care, take a breath, remember what is important to me, step back and say a word for all of the people who live on the borders and edges of our world, and are much more vulnerable than I am.
  I know nothing of politics, and less about money or markets, but I have been around a bit, and my guess is that some things will change, but when the dust clears, we will be talking about something else this time next year. I will be talking about a different book, on a different tour.
  The animals around me live simpler, more elemental lives. As much as we want them to be like us, they are smarter than to live their lives around markets and money. Here, they have what they need, and they only want what they need to live. Except, perhaps for Lenore, who would like more food.
  And I recall what a good and wise man told me recently. Everybody survives.
  That’s the test, I suppose. Not to live without fear, but despite it.
  For me, when I turned off the TV, and I imagined all of the fear unleashed in the world of politics and money, and I thought in some ways that all of this is yet another opportunity for faith. I choose to have some.