Human Existence Vs. The True Life:

Fear of Death, Political Leadership and the Godly alternative

Old Scriblings from: Mehari ZeMelak (a deacon, theologian, and semiticist)

Humans live in fear of death (i.e. DEATH in its multifaceted forms). Hence, they live together with those whom they think are less threatening. It is funny to think that cowards come together to feel the delusion of courageousness. But they do it anyway. Each calls this ‘safe area,’ his/her HOME (home town, home land, home etc.). They want to make sure that this 'home' is always predictable, safe and unchanging. Thus, they elect or consent for leaders from among themselves (i.e. a bunch of cowards). 

The leader is their SCAPE GOAT to face death (and be sacrificed if needs be) they don't want to face. Both the people and the scape goat know unconsciously what they are doing. That is the reason they call the scape-goating process as a coronation ceremony, or presidential or parliamentary election, inauguration etc. They paint it with golden color to conceal the ugly fear lying beneath. Unfortunately the scape goat herself is fully aware that she is being offered to be sacrificed 'for the sake of the many.' But, she wants to LIVE too. After all isn't that the reason why she has been living in the society? She sees the other way around. From her stand point, she is sacrificing the society for her good gain in life, to avoid what her quintessential being fears most. But the society should never know that the scape goat is scape-goating them. Therefore, she urges them to be UNITED behind her mantle while she is fighting in the FRONTLINES of their NOBLE CAUSE. She knows that the easiest way to their Unity Square is the Fear-of-Death-Alley. As a device of effective communication she incarnates the enemy for them in the flesh and blood of the neighbor next door with a different skin color or a different language or a different religion or a different nose or eye or ear or lips or toes or thumbs etc. So she tells them, 'Behold your enemies who put on you the agonies of the world!' 

In short, humans are broken and they cannot fix themselves. Their recorded history as well as their creative mythologies shows how much humans are the same species with broken and diseased will power throughout the ages. It is just because they fail to accept this fact and reality that they have doomed themselves to live in the vicious circle of 

Fear of death ----self-centeredness---violence---Fear of death.

Some of them think that they can be bold by considering themselves as simple blob of cells with some electromagnetic impulses. This, nevertheless, cannot bring out of death to life but shuts off in despair the chance of becoming alive at all. To borrow a summarizing phrase from Alexander Schmemann, God created the world to be lived in it, fallen humans turned it into a cosmic cemetery.

The good news is, however, there is the GOOD NEWS! If there is a daring heart to listen to and be enlivened in Him. There is a big difference between living as a dying being (which hardly can be considered living at all) and living as a living being. The question one needs to ask is, ‘Am I living?’