Fear: Humanity’s Dark Cloud

Rembrandt, Google Image

My dear sister-in-law, Clara, tells the story of a teacher colleague who many years ago boarded a crowded bus to go home from school, carrying her salary in cash in the billfold in her purse.

This was in Colombia in an era when thefts and robberies on buses were more common. The woman became suspicious of a man standing next to her on the bus. A seat opened up and to escape the man, the woman immediately took it. Also immediately, the seat next to her became free and the man sat next to her.

Panicky, she looked in her purse and saw no billfold. So, she pulled out a fingernail clipper, opening its little blade and stuck it into the man’s ribs. “The billfold,” she said, and the man handed it over. Then the woman got off the bus, looked into her purse and discovered two billfolds, hers and the one she had just inadvertently stolen.

Drives Us to be Careless

Fear drives us to be careless and much worse and occurs in so many areas of our lives. We fear illness, financial ruin, natural disasters, the poor opinion of others, and more than anything, death – ours and those of our loved ones.

We all fear different things and have different degrees of fear. And fear comes and goes, appearing in our lives at different times, often when it’s least expected. What is certain is that few of us ever escape it. It hangs over our lives like a dark cloud.

Jack Kornfeld, an American psychologist, author, and Buddhist meditation teacher, calls fear “part of the pallet of life," part of our body’s natural response to a perceived threat, he points out.

Jack Kornfield
Google Image
Christians, however, have a leg up when it comes to fear. Jesus experienced plenty of fear in his life, including the fear that preceded his horrible execution. Besides that, he is said to mention fear 20-30 times in the gospels, depending on the form of the word “fear,” urging his disciples to be fearless and telling them why they should be.  

One of the times in Luke’s gospel is part of a beautiful monologue in which Jesus urges his disciples not to let anxiety rule.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. “…Provide yourselves with purses that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”

And in a scene that is easy to picture in your mind’s eye, Mark tells the story of the boat trip taken by Jesus and his disciples on Lake Genezareth when “a great storm of wind arose and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But (Jesus) was in the stern, asleep on the cushion.”

Paralyzed with fear, “(the disciples) woke him and said, ‘Teacher, do you not care if we perish?’ He awakened and told the lake to be still, “and the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Have You No Faith?

“Why are you afraid?" he asked them. "Have you no faith?”

It’s easy to put yourself on that boat and empathize with those who lacked faith. How often do we, believers and want-to-be believers, say to ourselves and to God when we feel threatened by any of the things we fear, “Do you not care if we perish?”

Kornfield may be right in saying that fear is “part of the pallet of life,” but those of us who are searching for God in the Christian tradition must try to maintain enough faith in our loving Father not to let fear govern our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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