I want to think my friend, Steve, for recommending me for a carpentry job to one of his friends. Not because I got the job, but it gave me something to think about while I was doing some tedious painting.
This fellow wanted me to install a new exterior door from his porch to his kitchen. The existing door was in good shape, but it was one of those doors that has a glass insert panel on the top half. He was concerned that someone could break the glass, reach in and unlock the single cylinder dead bolt, and thus break into the house. He wanted me to install a solid door without a window. The kitchen was pretty shaded and dark, and the solid door would have made it even darker, but, to me, the darkness that permeated the house was not from the lack of windows.
His was the personal darkness of fear that made him willing to shut out the light. He had lived in that same house with the same door for over 30 years, but suddenly he was fearful of a break-in. It's not a bad neighborhood, middle-class, not wealthy, but not Detroit or Chicago. I looked for some statistics on home break-ins and found a Bureau of Justice Statistics report from 2003 to 2007. Here's the link: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/vdhb.txt. It turns out that the number of break-ins seems quite high; about 3.7 million/year, or one for every 33 households. But, 65% of those break-ins are committed by intruders known to the homeowners. About 7% (259,000) of break-ins result in assaults, but only about 90,000 of these assaults are by strangers. That makes the risk of being assaulted by a stranger in your own home about 1 in 3000. In all of the break-ins, there are only 430 homicides per year, so the risk of being killed in your own home during a break-in is about 1 in 700,000. According to the report, these risks diminish some what if you are white, married, and live in a single family home. And, I assume, that the part of the country you live in, your economic status, and other variables can increase or decrease your risk, but the report does not differentiate.
I won't call the man's fear irrational, after all, there is a small but real risk of being assaulted or even killed in you own home. But, you are 15 times more likely to die by falling in your own home, 10 times more likely to accidentally poison yourself, 7 times more likely to die in a home fire, twice as likely to die by choking to death, and almost twice as likely to die by drowning. There's even a higher risk of being shot and killed by a law enforcement officer.
This man's fear is an anecdotal example of our societal belief that danger seems to lurk at every corner. We are constantly reminded by the media that murder and mayhem exists. We are told by the NRA that we need guns to protect our homes. We are told by our Republican candidate for president that immigrants and and minorities are taking our jobs, cheating us of our tax dollars, spreading terrorism, and even threatening our religions. Some of our preachers allege that Christianity is under assault and that God will punish us for allowing abortions, or for tolerating LGBT people.
I'll admit that I'm cautiously fearful of certain things. I'm very fearful of some big picture items such as climate change or threats to our democracy, that might effect my child or grandchild, or our country, or even the world. I would bolt the door to protect future generations.
But here's the thing: I know that I, like everyone else is going to die, hopefully not tomorrow or next week, but someday. But until then, I am going to choose to live in the light.
