Nasrudin was walking alone at night when he saw a group of people approaching in the far distance. Instantly, his imagination began to toy with him: “They are surely robbers!” he thought. “No, why just robbers? Murderers, cutthroats! About to set upon me, a lonely traveller, leave me for dead and steal all my possessions! How are my wife and children going to cope without me?!” Nasrudin’s heart began to pound. His mouth became as dry as his palms became wet. He shook from head to toe and found himself breathing like an unfit man running to the finishing line of his first marathon.
Having thoroughly terrified himself,
he stumbled into a nearby graveyard and cowered, shaking inside an open tomb,
awaiting his fate. Meanwhile, the harmless strangers, worried by his dramatic
behaviour, approached him and looked with concern down into the tomb. “What,
pray, are you doing down there?” they asked. Nasrudin, calming down quickly,
said: “Well, put it this way: I am here because of you and you are here because
of me!”
I received a phone call from the local funeral
directors Ashton Brooks the other day. They thought I was the perfect person
for this particular “difficult” funeral. During the conversation Alison, the
funeral arranger said that Clive, the funeral director had seen me in
Altrincham, “looking very casual”. I could just imagine him saying it. Anyhow
after a little banter and conversation I realised where and when he had seen
me. I was out walking and talking with a friend. He had something big to talk
to me about. It seems he had decided to propose to his long term partner. They
have both been married before and have grown up children. It seems he had
already sought permission from his children and his partners children, as well
as her parents. It appeared that the only person who didn’t know was his
partner. He had bought a ring, in consultation with his partners daughter and
had booked the time and place at the gardens at Dunham Massey. The spot he
chose was their “favourite bench”. Now he obviously had quite a bit of fear
about this and it was this that he wanted to talk through with me. Not that I
could give him what he needed. That said I could walk with him and listen as he
cemented the faith and courage he needed to fulfil this beautiful act of love.
On Monday morning I received a beautiful
message of love from him, it brought a tear to my eye, she had said yes. He
sent me a lovely picture of the ring on her finger and of him holding her hand.
It was beautiful to see love manifested there right in front of my eyes. Love
gave him the courage to be what he needed to be. Just beautiful.
I had another conversation with an old friend.
He has a salon in Leeds and of course was reopening this week. He told me was feeling
a bit nervous about him. I told him that this was quite natural, that he was
experiencing a kind of return to school feeling we would get on a Sunday night
as kids; that horrible feeling in the stomach that would come over us. I said
can you remember that feeling that would come sometime between watching
“Bullseye” and “Surprise, Surprise”. I think that both the empathy and humour
helped.
There is quite a bit of nervousness and fear
around at the moment. Life is returning to normal and folk are experiencing all
types of fear for a variety of reasons. Fear about the vaccines and whether
they will work long term, as well as fears about complications potentially
arising from the vaccines. Fears about businesses reopening, will they survive
after the challenges of the last year or more. There are fears of the virus
rising again as we reopen and other strains spreading. There are fears of life
retuning to some sense of normality, will things ever be the same again. Will
we be able to truly be together again. Yes, there are many fears and they are
all understandable, they ought not to be dismissed or ridiculed. They need to be
understood and empathised with. I have my own and I am sure we all do.
Now there is nothing new people experiencing
these fears., they always with us, they are a part of our humanity. Ok they are
manifesting in one particular area at this time, but the fears and feelings are
not new. Neither by the way is the courage required to over come them, that
will allow us to live in the love that will overcome the fear.
Fear is a
powerful emotion. It has the power to inhibit but it also has the power of
allure. Fear comes in many forms. Forrest Church identified five different
types, which he associated with the body, intellect, conscience, emotions and
soul. These being:
“Fright”
(Centred in the body), which is a kind of instinctive fear, designed to protect
us from physical danger. It’s that feeling that makes us jump while watching a
horror film or the thing that gets our blood pumping and awakens our senses and
allows us to respond to physical danger, like when you get cut up in traffic.
The second
being “Worry” (Centred in the intellect), this is a fear that is produced by
our worst imaginings. Often they are not real and can be blown out of all
reasonable proportions. Shortly before he died Mark Twain mused, “I am an old
man and I have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened”
The third
being “Guilt” (Centred in the conscience). This is a fear of being caught out
or found out due to something that we have done in our past. It’s a fear we
often carry with us and can be projected into so much of our lives. It’s the
feeling that can come over us as we pass through security at airports, even
though there is no reason to feel it, or when walking out of stores and passing
through the security senses, even though we know we haven’t stolen anything.
The fourth
being “Insecurity” (centred in the emotions), this is fear prompted by feelings
of inadequacy. It is a fear that breeds a need to seek approval from others.
It’s form of Narcissism and forms deep self-consciousness which makes us
unconscious to life itself.
The fifth and perhaps most debilitating is “Dread” (centred in the soul), a fear that is generated by life’s general uncertainty. In “Freedom from Fear” Church wrote “ ‘Man himself produces dread, wrote the Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. We manufacture it whenever we attempt to control things over which we hold no final authority. We reduce life to a battleground, where we struggle against insurmountable odds. Fearing every transition from certainty to uncertainty, we devote our full energy to protecting ourselves against loss. Dread is the opposite of trust. The more we dread death and dying, the more alarming life and living turn out to be.”
Yes fear has many faces and all of them powerful in their own ways. We each of us experience every type at different times in our lives. Think about those feelings of fear you have experienced recently, see if you can identify which of the five, or a mixture of the five you have been experiencing.
Fear is a natural human reaction to life, Fear
is not the problem, the issue is the power that fear can have over us. The key
is to find the courage to over come the fear and courage of course comes from
love. I have seen some wonderful examples of this all week. My friend in Dunham
Massey gardens being a beautiful example of this just last Monday. The key is
to choose courage, it si to choose love over fear. As John 4 v 18 states
John 4:18
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect
in love."
How though do we do this? How does love overcome the power of debilitating
fear? How do we find the courage just to be?
Well it takes just a little faith and a little love to create the
courage just be. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far
from easy.
Courage in
many ways is the essence of life, maybe it is our daily bread. Anais Nin once
said “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” I’m sure we can
all think of moments when our own lives have either expanded or shrunk in
proportion to our courage. Courage itself comes from the French root “Cuer”
meaning heart. To have courage is to have strength of heart. Courage is a
consistent and sustaining love, it is a spiritual energy that sustains us in
sickness and in health, in loss or disappointment.
It is said
that there are only really two emotions fear and love. Well, it depends what we
mean by that. To feel the emotion of fear is not to lack love, or courage or
faith. The problem isn’t fear itself, rather it is the power that fear can have
over us. The problem is being ruled by fear, to be paralysed by it. How often
in life, do we say no to life because we have become paralysed by fear? Faith
is about discovering the courage to be all that we can be do and to do in love.
Life shrinks
or expands in proportion to the size of our heart; life shrinks or expands in
service to life itself. It’s about heart, it’s about courage, and it’s about
being all that we can be.
To have
courage is to have strength of heart and to live from our hearts in our
ordinary everyday activities. Courage is a way of living and breathing it’s
about living openly and vulnerably in the world. Courage comes in those
ordinary acts of love as we walk through life. It is courage that allows us to
learn that even when life has betrayed us, love is still present; it is courage
that allows us to stay open to life even when it’s tough; it is courage that is
formed in the heart; it is courage that is the ultimate act of faith; it is
courage that keeps us open to life so that we can live in love.
This brings to mind a verse from one of my favourite hymns “Others call
it God”
The verse goes like this...
“A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
And Socrates drinking hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
An millions, who though nameless,
The straight, hard pathway trod –
Some call it consecration,
And others call it God.”
The straight hard pathway of faith is not easy...
The images depicted in this verse are of characters who had the courage
to do what they believed they were there to do, whether a picket on duty, or a
mother looking after her children or the likes of Jesus and Socrates who were
willing to sacrifice their lives for love or truth...inspirations to me, inspirations
to us all
Socrates was charged by the Athenian council with “corrupting the minds
of the young, and of believing in deities of his own invention instead of the
gods recognised by the state.”
He courageously contested the charges against him, but ultimately lost
and as a result was condemned to die. He accepted the judgement of his peers,
while responding with these immortal words “The difficulty is not so much to
escape death...The real difficulty is to escape from doing wrong, which is far more
fleet of foot.”
He did not fear death because he felt that it would take nothing from
him of value. As he said to the court “I have never lived an ordinary life...I
did not care for the things that most people care about – making money, having
a comfortable home, high military or social rank.” Neither did he fear what
death would bring which he saw as either the sweetest sleep or a journey to a
better place, a place of justice. As he proclaimed “nothing can harm a good man
either in life or after death.”
Socrates would rather have surrendered his life, than his integrity.
Both in life as in death he perfectly illustrated the courage to be. He had the
integrity and therefore courage to say “I have a more sincere belief than any
of my accusers, and I leave to you and to God to judge me as it shall be best
for me and for yourselves.”
“Jesus on the rood” (Jesus on the cross) like “Socrates drinking
hemlock” is another incredible example of someone living out the courage to be,
an example and beacon to us all. He was not immune from fear though. In the
Gospel accounts of his life he rarely quoted scripture, and yet in his final
moments he did. He did not quote the comforting 23rd Psalm “I shall walk through the valley
of the shadow of death and fear no evil for thou are with me”. No, instead he
quoted the much starker 22nd Psalm
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping
me?” He did not quote the comforting words “My cup runneth over”, instead he
cried out “I thirst”.
Some might say where is the courage here? Well it is in what comes next,
as he utters “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” In these
words lies the essence of his message of radical love. For Socrates integrity
gave him the strength to be; whereas for Jesus it was love; the love of God and
the love of neighbour as for self. He surrendered himself utterly to his
purpose and to his God as he uttered those immortal words “Father, I commend my
life unto thy spirit.”
This is where we find the courage to truly be, to overcome the power of fear,
through living in and through love, truth and integrity. Love will always
overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all
that we can be. It is love that enabled the picket to stand in the freezing
cold to stand up for what he believed in; it is love that motivated the mother
to sacrifice herself for her children; it is love that enabled both Jesus and
Socrates to make their ultimate sacrifices.
We will always know the emotion of fear, we will always feel it. We need
it, it is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. To be
free all we need do is live in integrity, live in love and the courage to
simply be will shine out of us. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, but
we will be a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves
and others too.
Let love and truth show us the way to be all that we can be...Let us
find the courage to truly be.
Here's a video devotion based on this "blogspot"
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