Fear And Anxiety Poem by gershon hepner

If Israel won't hear,
God help society;
presence strikes fear,
absence anxiety.
Words that they write
on their doorposts must be
the sign of His light
they are anxious to see.

They fear as they hear
the word from above,
and wish He were near,
a presence to love,
for absence is error
in hearts that without Him
must suffer the terror
that comes when they doubt Him.


Eugen Weber, the Joan Palevsky professor of modern European history at UCLA, reviews 'France in the Enlightenment, ' by Daniel Roche (Harvard University Press) in la Times Book Review, January 31,1999. He writes:

Governing had been the business of king and God. God seemed to be losing interest. Kings were attracting the wrong sort of attention.....With salvation no longer dependent on the men who prayed, conformism weakened, practice declined, ordinations dropped, religious tolerance advanced. But if presence of God brings fear, his absence encourages anxiety.

1/31/99