According to the sage Aussie cartoonist, Michael Leunig, we only have two options – love and fear. We can choose one or the other – but not both.

‘There are only two feelings. Love and fear.
There are only two languages. Love and fear.
There are only two activities. Love and fear.
There are only two motives. Love and fear.
There are only two results. Love and fear.
Love and fear.’

If we allow fear to dominate our lives it destroys our capacity to love others. As the songwriter Amanda McBroom put it in her classic love song ‘The Rose’ :

‘It’s the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance.
It’s the dream afraid of waking
That never takes a chance.
It’s the one who won’t be taken
Who cannot seem to give.
And the soul afraid of dying
That never learns to live.’

Albert Camus says if we draw back because of our fear, we may miss out on our moment of enlightenment. ‘We are seized by a vague fear, an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits. At that moment we are feverish but also porous, so the slightest touch makes us quiver to the depths of our being. We come across a cascade of light and there is eternity.’

According to Alfred Lord Tennyson:

‘He that shuts Love out, in turn shall be shut out from Love,
and on her threshold lie, howling in the outer darkness’.