That Leap of Faith

The third Indiana Jones movie (in some ways, the best) focuses on the conflict between a man of faith (Dr. Jones, Sr.) and one of doubt (Indiana). The elder Jones deeply believes in the reality of God and his son’s story, and uses his research to try to find temporal proof.

When they have reached the last of the journey, and are poised to find the Holy Grail, his father is shot by the cruel business tycoon, who hopes to use Indiana’s desire to see his only parent live as a spur to securing the goblet. He passes two tests by correctly interpreting the clues in his father’s notebook, but the third test puzzles him.

We who have cast off exaggerated fear of COVID are in his position – we accept that our actions are scary, but look to the rewards of faith to guide us.

Today, I read a post of a writer whom I greatly admire – Kristine Katherine Rausch, who blogs at Kris Writes. In her post, she writes of the pandemic shutdowns, and how they affected her business and other businesses and workers. She is mostly positive about the future.

However, she is adamantly against people exercising their personal autonomy in choosing to vax or not.

“I’ve been struggling with planning for the future—not the immediate future (which for me is one year) but a farther future.

I blamed it on the pandemic and my issues as an adult child of alcoholics. When I’m going along on my own pace, doing my own thing, and something unexpected and impossible to plan for happens, it can trigger that childhood experience. You see, drunks promise a lot of things and when the time comes, fail to deliver.

I can live with that. Sometimes it irritates Dean because I have to plan for both the best case and worst case scenario, but I can do that. It’s how I’ve survived. (My therapist taught me to add the best case years ago, because my drunk parents almost never came through on anything special, so worst case for me was usually what happened. So I had to learn how to be positive.)

What always threw me for a major loop was the impossible-to-anticipate disaster, triggered by the drunk parents. The night they got into such a huge fight that 17-year-old me, who had just failed my driving test, had to drive my mother to the hospital because my father had fled the house is but one example of the unexplained disaster that takes over and dominates for days, weeks or months.”

So, her unique background gave her expectations that other people cannot be counted on. It also led to her need to exercise tight control over her surroundings.

I get that – I really do. However, like many people, particularly women, she takes that control need too far – and into other people’s lives.

“We haven’t dealt with this level of personal stress on our psyches outside of a war, and while fighting Covid was (and is) its own kind of war, it’s not exactly the kind of war that includes bombs and soldiers and occupations.

We’ve dealt with pandemics throughout human history but again, not like this, where everyone knew what was happening everywhere else, and doing their best to cope in a situation without a clear end point.

We’re still not at a clear end point. Here in the States, people are refusing to get vaccinated which just boggles my mind. If they actually understood the scientific underpinning of viruses and vaccines, they would understand that the vaccines are our only way out of this without a lot of unnecessary death and suffering.

In other regions of the world, they have no access to the vaccine yet and they’re still in the horrors of 2020.

If you stretch the war analogy, you can think of it this way: some places are still battlefields, while others have declared peace. Those of you who understand military history know that ongoing battles in far regions of the world/country can often lead to a restart of the overall war itself.

Which is why I constantly return to the science. Because I know that if the virus mutates enough to break through the vaccines, the scientists are prepared now. Those of us already vaccinated will get a booster or two or three.

That means that because I’m vaccinated, I’m legitimately out of Covid fears.”

And, that’s a common response to a personal crisis – find a talisman, and use it for all circumstances in which you experience fear. For her, and for many, the vaccine is a talisman – a magical possession that will give protection in all circumstances – if only you believe in its power.

8 comments

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    • Toastrider on August 4, 2021 at 8:34 AM

    Here’s the problem:
    “…That means that because I’m vaccinated, I’m legitimately out of Covid fears.”
    Cue Lex Luthor screaming, ‘WRONG!’. Oh, not about the vaccination itself. But the PTB will repeatedly, happily, stoke the fears, over and over, so they can retain the power they’ve managed to sink their claws into.
     
    It’s ALL about being able to push other people around, with no fear of consequence or reprisal.
     

    • Jennifer7084 on August 4, 2021 at 10:21 AM

    This is part of the problem, these people think it’s a vaccine like every other vaccine.
     
    Its not.
    I wonder if they’ll be able to blame the unvaccinated for the vaccinated being unable to conceive children and having heart attacks and strokes and dropping dead?

  1. For her, and for many, the vaccine is a talisman – a magical possession that will give protection in all circumstances – if only you believe in its power.

    A magnificent insight! Yes, indeed: the shamans have held forth a talisman and have exhorted the congregation to believe, with the promise of…well, not eternal life, but a prolonged life and health for those who will do as they’ve been told. But of course, you must have faith. If you allow yourself to doubt the power of the talisman — even to the extent of not urging it upon everyone around you — its protection will fail, and you will reap the consequences. There is no salvation outside the church!

    This, from a supposedly intelligent woman who claims to “understand the science.” There’s an awful lot of that going around…most of it complete self-delusion.

    • George True on August 4, 2021 at 12:47 PM

    I followed the link to the blog of Ms Rausch and read the entire article.  While I have great respect for YOU, Linda, I think your respect for her is perhaps a little misplaced.  In reading her article, all I could think to myself while reading it was…Wow.  Just, WOW !  She has fallen hook, line, and sinker for all of the government and media 24/7 gaslighting and deliberate disinformation that we have been subjected to for 18 months now.  There are so many provably false beliefs that she has bought into and is espousing to her readers that it is difficult to know where to begin.  But I will try.

    First, she states that the fact that people are refusing the vaccine just boggles her mind, and that the reason (according to her) that some of us are refusing it is that we do not understand the scientific underpinnings of viruses and vaccines, nor do we understand that the vaccines are our only way out of this without a lot of unnecessary death and suffering.  The condescension and arrogance of such a statement from someone with absolutely NO background in or understanding of the life sciences is what I find mind boggling.  While I am not a doctor (nor do I play one on TV), I do have an advanced degree in human physiology and cell biology.  Not only have I designed and conducted original research myself, I have also studied and investigated literally hundreds and hundreds of published research papers having to do with human physiology at the cellular level.  I know a thing or two or three about how to evaluate research, and how to quickly differentiate properly designed and conducted research from junk research.  As a result, I understand QUITE WELL that not only are the ‘vaccines’ NOT the way out of this crisis, they in fact are potentially quite dangerous, and are almost certainly the CAUSE of the spike in the new cases of this so-called Delta variant.

    Next, she states that other regions of the world that do not yet have widespread access to the vaccine are still experiencing the horrors of 2020.  Really?  Let’s look at Africa.  For the most part, all of Equatorial and Sub-Saharan Africa have been largely free of Covid, even though there has been almost no Covid vaccination taking place there.  How can this be?  Well, two of the greatest health issues in almost all of Africa continue too be parasites and malaria.  As a result, Hydroxychloriquine and Ivermectin are given out like candy.  Most Africans routinely take HCL or Ivermectin or both as a preventive measure.   It has been well known since at least 2005 that these safe-as-aspirin drugs are extremely effective against both SARS-1 and SARS-2 (Covid).  Thus, Covid has not been able to get a foothold in most of the African continent.  Also, in regions of India where Ivermectin was allowed to be used by the local Powers That Be, new cases of Covid crashed to virtually ZERO within a matter of weeks.  So no, regions of the world where the vaccines are not being widely used are NOT experiencing Covid horror.

    Ms Rausch then states that she constantly returns to “the science”.  And that “science” informs her that when Covid mutates enough to break through the vaccines, the scientists are prepared with the booster shots, and that she and the rest of the vaccinated are prepared to get a booster or two or three.  Holy Mother of God.  There are just no words for such breathtaking ignorance.  The problem with the perspective of such people as her is that they confuse the religion of Scientism with actual SCIENCE.  And what is science?  Science is DATA, as opposed to Scientism, which is a pseudo-religious belief system.  Getting back to the actual data, if one knows how to read and understand the data, the actual science says the exact opposite of what our government and its mainstream media propaganda division have been gaslighting us with since March of last year.

    Had our government handed out pennies-per-dose HCL and Ivermectin back in the Spring of 2020, this pandemic would have effectively OVER by May or June.   This conclusion, based on the actual data from literally dozens of studies and from almost two decades of practical experience, is absolutely incontrovertible.   Our government has actually committed mass murder of its own citizens by making HCL and Ivermectin unavailable for those who were the most seriously afflicted with Covid.  Probably 75 to 80 percent of those who died from Covid WOULD NOT HAVE DIED had our government and the medical industrial complex allowed and promoted universal treatment with these incredibly cheap and extremely safe and effective drugs.  So no, Ms Rausch, the vaccines are NOT the only way out of this crisis.  Even now, if every person currently diagnosed with Covid were treated with one or the other of these drugs, the entire Covid scam-demic in these United States would be effectively OVER by Labor Day.

    Literally everything our government and its mainstream media palace guard has done and espoused since March of last year has been the exact opposite of what should have been done.  The lockdowns, the masks, the anti-social distancing, the school closings, the church closings, the withholding of known cures for Covid, and the fast-tracking of mRNA gene therapy injections, have all caused incalculable harm.  Had the government just stayed out of the way and done nothing at all, we would have reached herd immunity a year ago, and Covid would now be behind us, and the majority of US citizens would now have robust lifelong broad spectrum natural immunity to Covid and any of its variants that might pop up.

    But people like Ms Rausch do not understand any of this.  Now that just boggles MY mind, and rightfully so.   

      • Kathleen on August 4, 2021 at 6:53 PM

      Fantastic analysis, George True, I agree with every word.

  2. I actually agree with you, George, about Ms. Rausch’s understanding of the science (I’m a former science teacher myself). She completely misunderstands the obvious conclusion to reach re: the African people and the likely cause of their seeming invulnerability to Commie Crud.
    However, when I said that she was intelligent, I was referring to her understanding of publishing contracts, negotiation, and licensing, as it applies to writers. She’s run her business successfully for many years, largely as an indie writer.
    That said, when people step out of their area of expertise, they often seem like dunces – they simply haven’t the understanding of that unrelated field that allows them to function.
    Very few people can master more than one field; at some point, almost all of us hit the wall in switching fields.

    • Scott on August 5, 2021 at 4:30 AM

    Had our government handed out pennies-per-dose HCL and Ivermectin back in the Spring of 2020, Bill Gates and friends would not have near the control over the world as they do now. Also I might be wrong on this but I seen  where  “” if there is a product/ medicine/vaccine on the market that is showing signs of working or  is working against a virus  then other drug manufacturer’s could not get a EUA from the FDA? As stated I have known idea if this is true but if it is then “ Some body dot some explaining to do Lucy “”

    • Reginald Throckmorton on August 5, 2021 at 9:48 AM

    I wonder if they’ll be able to blame the unvaccinated…
    Yes, they will.
    That narrative has already been established and is active.
    Plan accordingly.

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