… And today abideth faith, hope charity …
2 Corinthians 13.13 (KJV)

That may have seemed true to Saul/Paul in the first century of the common era, but a post-Christian sees more clearly. During the past 2000 years—and most particularly today—what has prevailed and prevails still are hate, anger, and fear … and the greatest of these is fear.

In my lifetime I have seen the return—though still I hope not the triumph—of fear itself.

As the Heart Sutra puts it, a person can yet learn to …

… live without walls of the mind.
Without walls of the mind and thus without fears …

It is only human-all-too-human to hold tight to our fears and be loathe to let go of them. (This and other fatuous comments are gratis.) The principal obstacle to charity—agápē (ἀγάπη), caritas, love)—is fear, which leads to anger, which leads to hate.

Oddly enough this thought was precipitated—as salt crystals are in an over-saturated solution—by the banking crisis of March 2023 and the absolute refusal of those who ought and do know better to, as Leopardi said, call things by their proper names.