Fear Never Fixed Anything

This is the text of the reflection I offered on February 3, 2019, to the congregation I serve  in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Sam Keen is, as I said during the Story time, a fairly well-known author within a certain niche of readers.  He’s written books like, Your Mythic Journey, Fire in the Belly, Inward Bound (exploring the geography of your emotions), To a Dancing God, and The Passionate Life.  He’s particularly well known to people interested in what’s been called the mytho-poetic movement.  He’s written that we are, “bio-mythic animals.  The true double helix that makes us human is an intertwining of biological mechanisms (IDNA) and cultural mechanisms (or myths).  We are fabric woven of chemistry and narrative, biology and stories, flesh and dreams.”

It’s not too unexpected, then, that he would not only be intrigued by the physical elements of learning the flying trapeze, but it’s mythology-poetic ones as well.  The subtitle of the book Learning to Fly, is “trapeze — reflections on fear, trust, and the joys of letting go.”

It’s a commonly accepted fact among preachers that a lot of adults pay more attention to, and report getting more out of, the story for the children than they do from the more “adult” sermon that is ostensibly written for them.   With that in mind, it’s my intention to give now essentially the same reflection as I did then (with a lot more quotations and, hopefully, a bit more depth).

Keen had, as I said earlier, a lifetime dream of being a trapeze flyer.  But, like most people, as he got older the dream faded into the more quotidian realities of daily life.  [That’s one of the differences – I didn’t so “quotidian” to the kids.]  By pretty much every measure, he had a very successful life.  And yet, there was a point in his life, his career, his marriage, that he found himself troubled.  He asked, “Why was my spirit so heavy?  Why was I so frequently depressed?  So earthbound?  So grave?”  Whether he was conscious of it at the time, he was asking himself questions that made use of the metaphor of the flyer.

“[W]e all yearn to fly.  We are creatures of longing.  We do not need to climb the long ladder to the pedestal or grasp the fly bar to be airborne.  What I call the aerial instinct — the drive to transcend our present condition — is the defining characteristic of a human being.  We are restless animals, eternal travelers who are forever in the process of becoming.  Consciousness itself is a flight from the here and now and to the beyond.”

We are creatures of longing, and Keen still longed to fly.

So, as I also said during the children’s reflections time of this service, one day, when he was near his 63^rd birthday, he saw an ad on television announcing the opening of a new school in San Francisco to teach ordinary everyday people the skill and art of the trapeze.  He went to watch, and found what he described as “an alternating current of fear and fascination.” Interest turned into engagement, turned into a passion.

As with most people who develop a new passion – whether a new intellectual interest, a new spiritual perspective, a new lover, a new hobby, a new passion of any kind, really – he talked about flying all the time.  His friends felt it more than a little odd that this man so known for his insightful intellect would become so passionate about something so physical and so dangerous.  Especially because he was nearly 63 years old.  But about passions Keen has written:

“[A]ll passions are strange passions to those who do not share them.  The passions that animate individuals thrive in the most unexpected nooks and crannies.  There are people who are ecstatic about collecting stamps, old motorcycles, vintage Levis.  Or painting pictures of barns.  I know otherwise normal people who are wildly enthusiastic about riding around on manicured lawns in electric carts and hitting little white balls into holds in the ground.  [I have to digress here for a moment.  I recently read somewhere that golf is the only sport in which the goal is to play less of it.]  I have met numerous cabdrivers who can’t keep their checkbooks balanced but can give you the batting average of everyone who ever played in the World Series.  And many a [person] has kept the smell of the salt sea in [their] nostrils while building a sailboat in a backyard in Iowa.”

He acknowledges that, “Passion is seldom rational and usually blind.”  He says that he has learned, though, that, “it is hazardous to ignore passing fantasies and emerging passions.”  He writes, “[I]n the degree I cease to pursue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears.  When passion no longer waters and nurtures the psyche, fears spring up like weeds on the depleted soil of abandoned fields.”  Hear that again:  “in the degree I cease to pursue my deepest passions, I will gradually be controlled by my deepest fears.”

Many of us would no doubt feel more than a little fear if we were climbing up a ladder to a platform – the pedestal – that’s only six feet long and 18 inches wide, even though it’s 25 feet off the ground.  And that’s a lot of what Keen learned – both literally and figuratively.  He learned about fear.  In fact, as he titled one of his chapters, he became, “a Connoisseur of Fear.”

He’d always been something of a risk taker.  He tells the story of spending an afternoon with the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel.  (Keen had done his doctoral dissertation on Marcel’s work.). At one point they were going through Harvard Square, and Keen was “dodging through the traffic.”  His wife said to Marcel, “Sam likes to take risks,” to which Marcel replied (and Keen remembers there being a twinkle in his eye as he said this), “Only take interesting risks.”

Interesting risks.

Facing our fears, living into our fears, is something that most of us try our best to avoid.  He notes, “It is reasonable to play it safe, not to leap — but it is not always reasonable to be reasonable.”  His begins that chapter about, “Becoming a Connoisseur of Fear,” with an epigraph by Aldo Leopoldo — “It is a poor life in which there is no fear.”  Keen writes,

“As nearly as I can figure, the rock-bottom truth is that life is both wonderful and terrifying.  The German philosopher Rudolf Otto said that our confrontation with that ultimate reality within which we live and move and have our being (which, for lack of a better name, we call the Holy) is always a mystery that evokes both fascination and fear. […]

[T]o ask, ‘Why face danger?’ Is the wrong question.  The right question is ‘What happens if I try to build a life dedicated to avoiding all danger and all unnecessary risk?’ If ‘security’ and ‘safety’ become watchwords by which I live, gradually the circle of my experience grows small and claustrophobic.”

What happens if I try to build a life dedicated to avoiding all danger and all unnecessary risk?

“Death says, ‘Play it safe.’ Life says, ‘Risk it.’  At the vital edge something dangerous calls my name.  What will I risk to stay alive?”

Keen says that there are three basic, instinctual fears which all humans share.  Only three:  “the fear of falling, the fear of being imprisoned in a tight space, and the fear of loud noises.”  He adds, though,

“I have noticed that once the fear of literal dangers has been mastered, a more complex fear of symbolic danger emerges.  I am afraid of failure.  I am afraid of what others will think of me.  I am afraid I will embarrass myself.  I am afraid I will lose control.  I am afraid I can’t trust you.  I am afraid I will be abandoned if I do not measure up to your expectations.”

Do any of you know anything about any of that that?  I do.  Oh how I do.  And I know, too, that what Keen says about the limiting nature of a life ruled by fear is true.  And I know, I know, that if I let my life be ruled by my fears I will not really be alive.  And I know that that’s true for each of us.

It’s true of institutions, too.  Groups, communities, organizations, (churches), can become ruled by fear, afraid to make that leap of faith from what we know, from what is safe, into the void of the unknown, because “it is reasonable to play it safe – not to leap.”  We risk – again, our institutions, and us as individuals – we risk so very much when we let go, not entirely sure that we will be caught. And yet, as Keen asks, so should we:  What happens if I, if we, if all of us try to build a life dedicated to avoiding all danger and all unnecessary risk?  (Even the “interesting” ones.)

It is a poor life in which there is no fear. 

This doesn’t by any means mean that we should be foolhardy and leap at every opportunity.  One of the things learning the trapeze taught Keen is that you should only take risks that you’re ready for.  Every time he went too far beyond his ability, trying to do something that really was beyond his grasp, he hurt himself.  Every time.  And, really, only at those times.

Part of that preparation, as I said to our kids (and to those of you who were listening), is to practice falling.  Notice how similar the words fall and fail are?  Before trying a new trick he learned to practice missing the trick, to practice failing, to practice falling, because the ability to fall correctly is essential.  Fall wrong, and you can hurt yourself seriously.  It’s imperative, then, to recognize our propensity for failing, for falling, to embrace the fact of its inevitability, and to prepare oneself for it.  There is, “a fundamental principle — learn the fall before the trick; prepare for failure.  From the moment when a fledgling accomplishes the first free fall, progress in flying and falling go hand in hand. […] the great flyers have always been great fallers.”

It stands to reason, then, that if you should you prepare for the falls that are unavoidable, you shouldn’t try to avoid them.  Keen writes, “If you aren’t failing frequently it is because you are too timid or too stuck in your rut to try anything new and risky.”  I have heard it said that clergy and congregations need to get better at doing memorial services for ideas, things tried that didn’t work or that have simply run their course.  We too, individuals and institutions, can become stuck in our own ruts.  Too intent on playing it safe.  Too focused on staying safe.  We can make a priority of making sure that we protect what we have and our sense of who we are.  It is, after all, reasonable to play it safe.  It is only sensible to not take that leap. And yet, it is not always “reasonable to be reasonable.”  We can limit our ability to grow, to change, to evolve.  These things always involve a fairly sizable amount of risk.  It’s dangerous.

Keen writes, “If I get stuck in who I am now, I will never blossom into who I might yet become.  Today’s identity is tomorrow’s prison.”  If we get stuck in who we are now, who we have been, we will never blossom into who we might yet become.  This reminds me of something the Catholic priest and Trappist monk Fr. Thomas Merton wrote, “If the you of five years ago does not consider the you of today a heretic, you are not growing spiritually.”  How many of us here this morning think our self of five years ago would be shocked at who we are today?  Would find it heretical?  Scandalous?  Couldn’t imagine in a million years that we are where we are?  Or would that us-from-the-past be unsurprised, comforted to know that we’re still safe and sound, that nothing much has changed?  (What would the church of five-years ago think of who we are and where we’re going today?)

“No footbridge leads from reason to faith, from doubt to trust.  Prior to the leap, fear seems more justified than trust, isolation more fundamental than communion, and the flight of the spirit an impossibility.

The short leap from the trapeze to the catcher is a flight from primal fear to basic trust, from I to thou, from autonomy to communion, that can be made only by a total commitment of the self.  Flying, like faith, hope, and love, is an existential act that cannot be accomplished by a spectator.”

This is what it means – part of what it means, at least – to be fully and truly alive: not to be mere spectators of our lives.  We are called to live them.  And all living things must change and grow lest they stagnate and die.  This is as true for you and me as for a pond, a butterfly, or a seed.

As Sam Keen learned the skills and art of the aerialist, he learned about more than the need to let go, prepared for falling while simultaneously willing to fly into the unknown.  He also learned about the net.

“Initially, I thought of the net as nothing more than a safety device that would protect me if I could manage to fall correctly on my back, seat, or stomach. As I gained skill in twisting, turning, and landing, however, I realized it was more than a concession to human fallibility; it was also a platform to launch new flight. A modern nylon net is essentially a large trampoline that invites a flyer to convert a fall into a rebound trick — a somersault, a suicide dive, a high balletic leap. Professional trapeze troupes always end their acts with dramatic dives or somersaults into the net. In fact, the trick, that seems to delight audiences more than any other is one introduced by Tito Gaona [of the Flying Gaonos] in which he plummets to the nets, bounces very high, somersaults, and lands seated on the catcher’s trapeze.

Gradually, I am learning to enjoy the creative possibilities of the rebound. I suppose there are exceptional men and women whose lives are an unbroken series of successes, but for most of us the ascending path is punctuated by times of descent, downfall, and depression. My failures have taught me there is always a second chance. What I have managed to create after falling has often turned out to be better than the trick I planned. Failing gives fallible human beings the chance to start over. This is why every man, woman, and society needs a safety net.”

My friends, we can be that net for one another.  We can catch each other when we fall, and help to propel us to new, and perhaps as yet unimagined (and even unimaginable), possibilities.  We can, when we do this “community” thing right, trust one another so that we can more easily let go of the known in order to take the leap into the unknown because we know there is this net before us.  I know that we can do this, and be this, because we have been.  Because we are, now.  (Yes, even now.) 

As we move into this still-new calendar year, and round the corner on the second half of our church year, let us be brave, be bold, in looking for the “interesting risks,” that abound around us.  Let us not live from a place of fear, knowing that fear never fixed anything.  Let us, instead, live within the fundamental and omnipresent realities of faith, hope, and love.  Let us live with courage, boldly, so that we might blossom into who we might yet become.  So that we might fly.

I used the following passage as the Closing Words for the service:

“Paradoxically, when we invite our fears into the hearth of our awareness, they cease to be an undifferentiated mass of terrifying demons and become tolerable guests.  Each day befriend a single fear and the miscellaneous terrors of beading human will never join together to form such a morass of vague anxiety that it rules your life from the shadows of the unconscious.  We learn to fly not by becoming fearless, but by the daily practice of courage.”

I used the following words to introduce the morning's Closing Hymn -- #1019 in Singing the Journey – “Building a New Way”:

“[W]e have become captives, driven by the demands of our corporations, the market economy, and the pressures of globalization, which exist side-by-side with the escalating violence caused by tribalism, nationalism, and anarchy.  It is a hot and heavy world.  Not much joy in high places. […]

We are in the grip of the spirit of seriousness, which Nietzche equated with the devil. ‘When I saw my devil I found him serious, thorough, profound, and solemn; it was the spirit of gravity — through him all things fall.’”

Pax tecum,

RevWik

An illustration for Learning to Fly

Cheers!

This is the text of the reflections I offered at the congregation I serve on Sunday, July 15, 2018.

In the late 80s, early 90s, Sam, Diane, and, of course, Norm, were household names.   They were part of the TV “family” that gathered in a fictional Boston bar, and whose various ups and downs and absurdities formed the content of each episode.  The heart of the show, though, was the idea of a place, “where everybody knows your name.”  It wasn’t an instant hit, though.  Out of the 77 shows in its timeslot on the night of Cheers’ premier in September of 1982, it ranked 74th.  Thirty years later, however, roughly twenty years after the show ended, TV Guide put it at #11 on their list of the “60 Greatest Shows of All Time.”  For many, during the decade it was on, Cheers was the epitome of “Must See Thursday.”

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,

And they're always glad you came;

You want to be where you can see,

Our troubles are all the same;

You want to be where everybody knows your name.

[Feeling a little nostalgic?  Of course, the fact that I think of this as bringing a contemporary reference into these reflections shows just how old I really am.]

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”   I come back to this quote from the English novelist Jane Howard over and over again.  “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”

Since its inception in 1972, the General Social Survey has gathered data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants in attitudes, behaviors, and attributes.  Hundreds of trends have been tracked in those years. Actually, since the GSS adopted questions from earlier surveys, trends can be followed for nearly 7 decades.

1985 was the first year that the GSS collected data on the number of confidants with whom Americans discuss important matters. In the 2004 GSS the authors replicated those questions to assess social change in core network structures. Discussion networks, as they’re called, were significantly smaller in 2004 than in 1985. The number of people who said that there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled.  In her article, “The Loneliness of American Society,” Janice Shaw Crouse interpreted the data like this: 

“a quarter of the respondents — one in four — said that they have no one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles or triumphs. If family members are not counted, the number doubles to more than half of Americans who have no one outside their immediate family with whom they can share confidences. Sadly, the researchers noted increases in “social isolation” and “a very significant decrease in social connection to close friends and family.”

This has become almost a mantra:  we are the most connected society in the history of humanity, and also the loneliest.

Dr. Emma M. Seppälä is Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University and Co-Director of the Yale College Emotional Intelligence Project at Yale University.  She wrote an article for Psychology Today titled, “Connect To Thrive:  Social Connection Improves Health, Well-Being & Longevity.”  In it she wrote:

Social connection improves physical health and psychological well-being. One telling study showed that lack of social connection is a greater detriment to health than obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. On the flip side, strong social connection leads to a 50% increased chance of longevity.  Social connection strengthens our immune system […], helps us recover from disease faster, and may even lengthen our life.   [She notes research by Steve Cole, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences in the UCLA School of Medicine, which shows that there are actually genes impacted by social connection, and that these also code for immune function and inflammation.]

It’s easy to scape goat technology – the rise of social media, in particular – to explain the seeming conundrum of our being connected yet alone.  “All that time spent on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat,” many people say, “and maybe particularly all the MMORPGs, those Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, that “all the kids” seem so obsessed with, look like they’re providing community, yet it’s a very shallow kind of community.”  (I said, “all the kids” are obsessed with these games, yet there are quite a few adults who are massively pumped and have already bought their Season Five Battle Pass in hopes of finding out just what the heck is up with those cracks in the sky in Fortnite.  Or so I’ve heard.  But I digress.)  It’s common to hear people opine that social media offers only pseudo-connectivity, a mere simulacrum of the real thing.

Not so fast, other experts say.  A study carried out at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, reported in Science Daily, observed, “Training older people in the use of social media improves cognitive capacity, increases a sense of self-competence and could have a beneficial overall impact on mental health and well-being.”  And a 2010 study led by Abilene Christian University found that, “students who returned to school after freshman year had significantly more Facebook friends and wall posts than those who didn't return.”  Reporting on it for Wired, Brian Chen wrote, “Rather than being an escape from reality, social media may mirror real life: More actively connected students on Facebook were most likely also connectors in the real world.  He quotes the lead on the research saying, "The study was able to show that these students who are more active on Facebook are also out there getting involved, making new friends and taking part of activities that the university provides for them."

So what is this all about, this apparent fact that we, as a society, are increasingly disconnected even in our overly-connected world?  I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that at least part of the reason is that relationships – real, deep, meaningful relationships – are a lot of work.  And I think they’re hard in at least three ways.

First, relationships take time.  Real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationships don’t appear suddenly, out of nowhere, fully formed from the head of Zeus (as it were); they don’t get heated up in a microwave, they need to simmer, to slow cook.  Part of it is longevity – our deepest relationships are often with people who’ve known for a long, long time.  They’re with people with whom we don’t have to recount the details of our lives again and again, because these friends have been there through the good times and the bad.  This means they also take time invested.  Being there through the good times and the bad times requires us to actually be there through the good times and the bad times, and that takes time.

Oh, I know that a lot of folks have friends with whom we’re in touch only sporadically yet with whom, when we are in touch, it seems that we pick up right where we left off as if no time had passed at all.  Of course, usually such relationships were already deep, yet often these aren’t people who’d meet the criteria the GSS uses in their studies.  I once heard the kind friendship the GSS is talking about as people I know I could call in the middle of the night and who would drop everything and get in their cars or on a plane to go from wherever they are to wherever I am in order to be with me.  That significantly lowers the number of people on my list.

A second reason real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationships are hard is because they require commitment.  They require us to hang in there even when the relationship gets strained.  We have to be there for each other “through thick and thin” not only in relation to the world around us, but the world between us as well.  The “good times and the bad times” doesn’t just refer to the promise that you will be there for me when I experience good times and bad times, and that I’ll do the same for you.  It means that we’re there for and with each other when we, together, when our relationship is going through good times or bad ones. To take something I often say to my kids, it means continuing to love each other even when we don’t particularly like each other very much.

And that’s hard, isn’t it?  That’s really hard.  When you think that I’ve offended you; when I think that you’re being unfair and nasty to me.  When I’ve hurt you, and you’ve hurt me.  I’m not talking about obviously unhealthy, abusive relationships.  Let’s be clear about that.  I’m not talking about “sticking it out” through any kind of abuse “for the sake of the relationship.”  There’s a power imbalance there, and can be real danger, and that’s not what I’m talking about.  (I would argue, that’s not really – can’t really be – the kind of deep and genuine relationship we’re talking about here in the first place.)  I’m talking about otherwise healthy, equal, mutual relationships which have stood the test of time yet which are, right now, strained to the point perhaps even of breaking.  I’m talking about taking a deep breath and leaning into that discomfort, knowing that the relationship is, ultimately, worth it.

Because that experience of someone knowing our name, really knowing who we are, and always being glad we came, no matter what’s going on with me or between us – that’s a deep human longing.  More than that, it’s a deep human need.

And it’s one of the reasons for faith communities.  It’s one of the reasons that people come together in places like this – we’re looking for a place in which we feel known, seen for who we are, appreciated, and loved.  We’re looking for a place, and a people, in which, and by which, we feel that we belong.  And think about it – if a real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationship is really hard work between two people, then it’s got to be a whole lot harder among hundreds.  The complexity, the challenges, the opportunities for disappointments and pain, the work of it, is all exponentially increased.

Those of you who have been waiting for me to name the third reason I think relationships in which we’re really known are such hard work, here it is.  Truth be told, they’re scary.  For many of us it is so, so, very, very scary.  Because being known, deeply and fully, requires us to open ourselves up deeply and fully.  It requires me to really trust showing you who I really am, allowing you to see who I really am down beneath what I show to the world; it requires my showing you the truths of who I am that I don’t want anyone to see. 

A few years ago, when we did the Beloved Conversations program here, quite a number of us took part in the weekend workshop with which it begins.  The last exercise of the first evening had a profound impact on a lot of us, I’d dare say on most of us.  I won’t go through the whole thing this morning, but suffice it to say that it brought us in deep enough to look at, and name, our deepest, most fundamental fear.  We did this on our own, but then we were asked, if we were willing, to share them with one another.  And here, in this sanctuary, with the protective shroud of nighttime’s darkness around us, person after person dared to speak aloud their deepest fear.  These were folks many of us would identify as leaders in the congregation, people we’d identify as those we admire, and some we might say we aspire to be more like.  And nearly every one of these strong, wise, successful people said nearly exactly the same thing:  “I’m afraid that if people really knew me, they wouldn’t like me.”  I’m afraid that if people really knew me, really knew “my name,” really knew me deeply, genuinely, and in a truly heart-to-heart way, they wouldn’t like me.  I wouldn’t be accepted. I wouldn’t be loved.

And that’s the Catch-22, isn’t it?  In our desire to belong, to be deeply known, we hide sometimes great swaths of ourselves for fear of being rejected, being told that we don’t belong.  The third thing that makes these real relationship we seek so very, very hard is that we want to be known, and yet we don’t want to risk actually being known.  We don’t think we can risk it.

So here’s the thing – to the extent that we do risk it, to the extent that we do allow both the good times and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad times to have equal freedom between and among us, to that extent and only to that extent will our relationships be the kind of real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationships we want and which, ultimately, we need (not just for the sake of our immune and inflammation related genes, but for our souls).

This can be such a community, my friends.  This has been such a community for many of us over the years, and hard as it can be to believe at times, I truly believe that this is such a community right now.  Challenges, difficulties, disagreements – even hard and harsh ones – are not necessarily a sign that things are going wrong.  It’s what we do with them that determines what they mean for us.  If we lean into them; if we commit ourselves to sticking with it and each other; if we do lean into the discomfort (while clearly rejecting any abusiveness we might see); if we remember that the relationships that are this community are, ultimately, more important than the transitory happiness and satisfaction of any one of us; if, in other words, we do the hard, hard work real relationships require, we can, we will, prove to one another and to ourselves that even when we do show each other who we really are, we will be accepted and loved for who we are.  This then will be for us – each of us and all of us; you, me, and those who’ve not yet even found this community – this will then truly be a place where everybody knows our name, and really, truly are glad we came.  It is my hope that each of us can find even a taste of that here, and that each of us will do what we can to ensure that this is such a place for others.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

You Already Know

I know what to do.

You know what to do, too.

We know what to do

     in spite of that voice

     in our head

telling us that we don't;

telling us that we have no idea

     what

          to do;

telling us that the situation is

          hopeless,

     and that we are

          helpless.

Even so ...

We know what to do.

You know what to do.

I know what to do, too.

The problem really is:

that I don't want to

or that I'm afraid to

or that I'm hesitating

because I'm not sure that I can

     do

what I know I need

          to do.

In the biblical book of Judges,

God tells Gideon what to do.

But Gideon wants to make sure.

     Sometimes that voice in your head

           isn't

               God.

So Gideon asks God for proof --

     "Do this and I'll know

          I should do

     what you've told me

          to do.

     Do this,

          and I'll know that it's you."

So God did.

But Gideon wants to make sure.

He knows about coincidence.

So he asks God to do something else --

     "Do this other thing

          and I'll know that it's you."

And God does.

But Gideon already knew.

He knew what to do,

Just like you do,

and just like I do.

He knew what to do,

     but he didn't want to.

So he kept asking for signs,

          for proof.

And so do I.

I'll bet you do, too.

But here's what we know,

     beneath and beyond the voices that tell us that we

          don't,

here's what we know:

Get started.

Don't wait any longer.

Don't look for a sign to tell you when or how.

Start.  Do

Something.

Now.

Begin.

And when you've done that first thing,

     do the next one.

Keep doing

          something.

Now.

Don't wait for proof.

     Look back for it

     if you must,

     but later.

     After you've been at

     it for a while.

For now,

     just do

          the thing

               you already know to do.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

The Next Thing

It's been said that there are only two ways of living in the world, two motivations that fuel every decision we make and action we take:  love and fear.  Further, these two are said to be incompatable ... mutually exclusive.  In the Christian scriptures it's written, "love casts out all fear."  The inverse appears to be true, too -- when we are overcome with fear, our ability to live our lives from a place of love is seriously undermined, if not made impossible.  The more we live in fear, the less we live in love; and the more we live lives of love, the less fear can overtake us.

It's a funny thing about fear:  it is never, never, based in reality.  Not ever.  The truth that is so hard to remember, if we've ever understood it in the first place, is that there is quite truly nothing to fear.  That seems to fly in the face of everything we know and just about every experience of fear we've ever had, but that doesn't mean it's not true.  It just means that we don't really understand the nature of fear.

Fear is never based on what is happening now.  It is always based on what we think is going to happen next.  Read those last two sentences again and let their ramifications sink in.  If this is right -- if we really are afraid of what's coming next rather than what's happening now -- then it is clear that we're really afraid of nothing, since "what is coming next," by definition, isn't real.  And if this is true, it means that there's nothing to be afraid of.

I know what you're probably thinking.  You're probably thinking of a thousand and one times that you've been afraid and you're pretty sure that you were afraid of something.  Let me play out a scenario, though, to demonstrate what I mean.  It's exagerated, to be sure, but it should make my point.  (I don't remember any longer where I first encountered this teaching, but I am grateful to whoever it was both for the illustration and the lesson.)

Let's say that you're walking through the woods, having been told that there have been a number of bear sightings recently, and you hear something rustling nearby.  You, understandably, begin to feel fear.  But you're not really afraid of that sound are you?  You're actually afraid that you're about to come fact-to-face with a bear.  You're not afraid of what's happening now (hearing a rustling sound); you're afraid of what you think is going to happen next (encountering a bear up close and personal).

So let's say a bear does come out of the underbrush.  I'd suggest that it's still not what's happening now that has you afraid.  It's not the sight of the bear that you're afraid of.  It's the idea that the bear is going to rush you.  And when it does, indeed, rush you, your fear is really about what's going to happen when it catches you. 

Here's the kicker, though.  Even if the bear does catch you, and rakes you with its claws, the thing you're afraid of in that moment is not that you're being clawed by a bear.  You don't like it, of course.  You'd really rather it not be happening.  But what you're afraid of is that it's going to happen again.  You're afraid that it's going to keep happening, and that maybe the teeth are going to get involved.  Yet in each moment, as this attack unfolds, the actual elements of the attack -- while they're happening -- is not what you're really afraid of.

See?  Fear is never based on what's happening now; it 's always based on what we think is going to happen next.  Our fear is always one step ahead of what's actually happening; one step removed from reality.

Okay.  In this illustration you could say that even if you're fear is "one ahead" of what's happening it still makes sense.  Especially once the bear begins to charge, the rest is pretty inevitable.  It's highly improbable that a bear will break from the underbrush, run up to you, and then give you a hug.  Could happen, but not too likely.  So you might argue that it's not at all unreasonable to be afraid in this situation, and that your fear would be about something real.

Luckily few of us will ever go through something so dramatic, yet even our more pedestrian experiences with fear follow this same pattern.  You're not afraid of going to your bosses office; you're afraid that she's going to tell you that you're fired.  And while she's telling you that you're fired it's not that that you're afraid of.  You're afraid of what your spouse will say when you share the bad news.  And while the two of you are talking it's the next thing that's scaring you.  We're always afraid of the thing that's coming next, not the thing that's happening now.  And that means that our fear is always directed toward something that isn't real.  (At least, not yet.)  The next thing to happen is just that -- the next thing.  It's not what's happening now, and what's happening now -- this present moment -- is the only thing that's ever really real.

Yet as I said, when you are pretty sure of what the next thing is going to be, it seems to make a lot of sense to be afraid now.  Yes, it certainly seems to make sense.  Still, if fear and love cast one another out, then it would also seem that we would want to do whatever we can do to decrease our fear so that we can increase our love.  Recognizing that our fear is always based in the yet-to-be can be quite helpful.

I remember a woman in the first congregation I served.  The doctor thought that she might very well have developed a really serious illness and had ordered some tests.  I asked her if she was afraid and, solid Mainer that she was, she replied, "Why be scared 'till there's something to be scared of?"  She didn't want to be debilitated by fear; she wanted to keep her heart open for love.  And knowing that there really is nothing to be afraid of -- until, as she said, there is something -- she was able keep her mind and her heart calm it what could have been an extremely stressful situation.  (A situation that would have been stressful for most of us.)

It can be hard to remember this, yet it can be spiritually and literally life-saving.  There's a reason fear is often called "blind," yet in times like that brear attack it would behoove us to be more clear-headed rather than less so.  The same is true when we, or someone we love, receives a serious diagnosis, or we can see a relationship falling apart, or the boss calls us in for a sit-down.  To remember that the fear we're feeling isn't about what's happening at that moment but about what we think is going to happen next can free us to more effectively prepare for whatever it is that does come next.  And it can help to keep us open ... open to love.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

To Be(lieve) or Not To Be(lieve)

One of the most challenging parts of being a parish minister is weighing requests for assistance from folks who aren't a part of the congregation.  People come to churches because they know that here will be people who care; people come to churches because they know that they're generally "a soft touch."  There are people who come desperate; there are people who come deviously.  But they come.

When I was an intern in Concord, Massachusetts I was introduced to the system they had developed.  No congregation gave out financial assistance.  None.  But all of the faith communities in town donated toward a common fund . . . which was administered by the police department.  If someone came to a church and asked for money the staff person or volunteer who met them would explain that there was no money in the church to give out, but that they'd be very happy to call ahead to the police station to say that someone was coming who was in need.  They'd even offer to drive them if getting there would prove to be a problem.  Over the years that this system has been in place a fair proportion of folks who'd come asking for help never made it to the police department.  It seems that people who have no problem scamming a church are less inclined to scam the police.

We don't have such a system here -- and haven't in any of the other communities in which I've ministered.  But here we do have an organization called "Love INC" (Love in the Name of Christ) which, among other things, does help connect one lonely outpost of caring to another.  If someone has been making the rounds, or making trouble, Love INC sends out a bulletin to let other churches know.

Still, the decision to help or not to help someone is a difficult one.  Even when Love INC has noted that someone has given other congregations a hard time, or seems to be trying to scam the system, it can be hard to sit with someone, hear their story (even if it is only a story), and turn them away unhelped.  I've done it, but it's never easy.

There is a man who comes to the congregation I serve with some regularity.  He's homeless.  He served some time in prison.  And as a homeless man with a felony record -- who also happens to be African American -- he's got multiple decks stacked against him.  And, yes, I've been warned that he's a guy who's up to no good.  But I like him.  I've gotten a good feeling about him.

Today he called and asked if I could help him out.  He needed some money to pay back the bail bondsman or else he could get picked up and put back in jail.  I've helped him before.  He even stored his things in my office for a while the last time he was on the street.  And, so, the question was not just, "do I help this person?" but, "do I help this person again?"

I decided to.  Thinking about my sermon about the Good Samaritan a couple of weeks back I found myself asking not "what might happen to me if I do?" but "what might happen to him if I don't?"  Besides, as I said, I like this man and have had a sense of his inherent goodness.  So i called the bail bond company.  The woman who answered the phone seemed relieved.  She said that she'd lent him the money for bail a couple of weeks ago because she'd had a good feeling about him, had sense that he was a good person and sincerely wanted to try to work things out.  But as the days became weeks without hearing back from him she began to worry.  "I'm so glad that someone else saw in him what I saw in him," she said.  So was I.

I've said it before, and I'll no doubt say it again.  I would much rather be made a fool by believing in someone who doesn't deserve it than to be made mean by not believing someone who does.

Pax tecum,

RevWik