Do not be afraid. - Angels in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Doubt is not the opposite of faith. Doubt is faith's quality control. Doubt keeps faith from getting smeared with superstitious smegma, cluttered with kooky claptrap or wasted with wildly-weird woo-woo.
Doubt is not the opposite of faith; but if there is an opposite, a good case could be made for fear. Not that fear is always necessarily bad. Healthy fear can keep your sweet butt out of the E.R., out of jail and out of the crematorium. Healthy fear can keep you from keep you from walking across the interstate at rush hour, standing on your head on your Harley at 50 miles an hour or doing anything after drinking and shouting, "Hey, ya'll, watch this!"
On the other hand, a life guided by fear can keep you from faith better than bad breath and body odor can keep you from getting a date. When you live in fear and allow fear to call the shots, there's no room for trust. No room for hope. No room for confidence. Fear pops the faith balloon and kills the party. Allowing each decision and turn in life to be directed by fear, inevitably leads you to a tiny walled-in cell. A prison where a healthy faith-fed soul can starve.
If the holidays are anything, they are a carnival of faith. A festival of joyful expectation. A salute to infinite possibility. The holidays are a celebration that we never, ever need to live our lives boxed in by fear.
The holidays can be a headache in many ways. But, this week, Howard is headache-free and flying high because his ladies are coming home. Daughters Windsor and Kelsey are flying in from Boston and Miami, respectively; and Howard's LadyLove, Joyell, will be flying in from her 2 1/2 month journey through SE Asia. Lots of hugs, kisses, chatter and toasts are in the offing.