Things that go bump in the night

Perhaps that phrase is something you recall. If not, it is part of a poem written by the Scottish poet, Robert Burns asking the Good Lord to preserve us from " ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggedy beasties and things that go bump in the night". Fear of the unknown, of evils that lurk just around the corner, of what may or might befall us or our loved ones is a crippling emotion. It is not easily banished and in its grip we turn to the familiar to comfort ourselves.

We are not alone. I was reminded of this last night as I tossed and turned trying to shut out the sounds of our grand dog howling like his proverbial Baskerville cousin. I admit, at the time I ascribed his behavior to a high strung nature and a shameless bid for attention. He was wound up as a result of a lot of activity and a change from his usual evening routine due to a visit from people he does not frequently see. While I tossed and turned, refusing to concede to his barking and mewling it suddenly occurred to me that we were the guilty parties here.

You see, his established routine of an evening is to lie next to his Nanna and chew on his bone while we watch a little television--an hour or so before we retire to our books and Louis, goes night, night. But that did not happen and being a creature of habit, and excited by the activities earlier in the evening, Louis was transformed, not into the naughty hound, but the scared little puppy. When finally his fears were allayed he calmly went to sleep, but not before checking all over the house for any errant ghoulies or ghosties.

You can see where I am going with this. The things that threaten us are often very real, and we may not be able in the moment to do much to overcome them. We can howl into the wind--a practice I highly recommend by the way, if only to vent our overloaded emotions. But patience, calm, and rational thought are not easy to summon in the midst of the whirlwind.

At such times humans often turn to a greater power, for protection, reversal of misfortune, or solace. For some that is God, and for others it is a leader that exudes strength and power--or at least the semblance thereof. Unfortunately, as Mr. Lincoln pointed out one can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time. Many times the people we turn to for protection, for the righting of perceived wrongs, for solace, share unfortunate similarities. They are not strong, but weak, leading through intimidation, using fear and repression as an instrument to disguise their true nature. History bears grim witness to our penchant for choosing the worst leaders in times of instability.

We chose archetypes--snake charmers who will tell us everything is going to be great, when we ought to know it isn't that easy. Most of us at some point will live through bad times, through adversity and as hard as they may be they help forge our own inner strength--but when we seek to place some surrogate force in the path to fight our battles too often the only thing they are fighting for is their own power. You might think humanity had learned this lesson, but it keeps being repeated. We don't want a leader to tell us the truth--that the things we fear, the injustices we endure will take time, hard work and sacrifice to overcome. Instead, we want the fairy tale ending.

All too often we place pretenders in the place of power, only awakening to their greed and ineptitude after more damage has been done than what we most greatly feared. We become invested in exalting such people, venerating them as the golden idols we've been warned about. Don't expect us to give up our fealty easily. It is only when we ourselves are victimized by the people we placed in power that our allegiance may shift and the veil before our eyes drops.

Until then we will howl in the night in the hope that the ghoulies and ghosties that we invoked will spare us. Little Louis was comforted last night by his Nanna--but it took him a while to calm himself and accept that the things that scared him were not present. Unfortunately our present ghoulies are all too real. Robbie Burns had it right, may the good lord protect us from the things that go bump in the night, and from ourselves.