I have heard that one of the most often repeated commands in the Bible is a version of the phrase "Do not be afraid."   I have also never heard those words at a moment of personal fear and been able to appreciate them.   In fact, I am so good at fear that I actually struggle with fear of strong emotions in general.     I would like to propose we reinvent our fear language.  Even though fear is a basic biological impulse designed to protect our safety, its daily presence erodes our enjoyment of life.    My friends, what should we make of fear?


The strangeness of each of the accounts in the Christian sacred text leads me to think that the real issue behind our fear is something going on just below the surface.   It is important to note the verb in "Do not be afraid" is "be" rather than the word "feel".   The difference is regularly overlooked, but vital.  Take a look at some of the accounts of individuals "being afraid", you'll find them running, hiding, collapsing, mute, catastrophizing, blaming others, etc.   These are the same things that happen when we give away our sense of being and where we have been overcome by our darkest feelings. 


Most of the commands to not be afraid come with a reason. When the truth is revealed, it's usually a unique combination of radical change and surprise.   Let's reflect on that cause and effect relationship.  The divine reassurance is provided exactly because the situation actually is terrifying.   Why else would there be a need to give an explanation?  It is senseless and even cruel to dismiss the fearful experiences of others, and even more cruel to do it to ourselves.  


I suggest we make room for the feelings of fear,  recognize its sense of alarm, and open our awareness to its source.   We can make room by first recognizing the feelings present in our body.  These feelings are the pit in our stomach, the quickening of our heart beat, and the sudden urge to fight or take flight.   It takes real courage to sit (and only sit) and acknowledge these feelings in real time.  As we make this our practice,  something amazing happens - we can learn that our feelings are temporary.   When we become a witness to their rise and fall, much like bobbing on the water from the safety of a boat, we allow temporary fear to switch places with a permanent peace that is laying just below our emotional surface.   This is how we can "not be afraid"  while still recognizing that our old annoying friend named fear has come for a visit.


Feeling fear without being afraid also means developing an awareness of true threat versus perceived threat. We cannot rid ourselves of fear, it is our body's alarm system and its warning can save our lives.  For most, there have only be a few "life or death" fear inducing moments in life.  The rest of these moments however, are often threats to our ego, despair over our lack of control, and frustration coming from our resistance to circumstances.    Giving in and responding to these perceived threats can also fit the definition of "being" afraid.  


When our sense of being has given over to fear,  we have a choice.   Living in constant reactivity to every ego slight or need for control does nothing more than induce more fear.    A better choice looks like the process of accepting fear,  re-framing our situation, and pursuing a new direction in real time (maybe this is what working out salvation with "fear and trembling" means).   These choices will not remove fear from  your life, and you wouldn't want that any more than having non-functioning fire alarms in your home.   However, It will help you remember that there are real alarms and fake ones.  The fakes ones are much more prevalent.   Even as the alarms sound from time to time, it's possible to feel fear but not permanently overcome by it.   When you doubt this check out some of my favorite fear encounters in the Bible:


Exodus 14:13    A time God followers feared that they were being led to their death by God


Deuteronomy 7:18  For the faithful and forgetful, a reminder to the same group who had already lived through the Exodus 14:13 incident


Proverbs 3:24  For the times the quiet of the night is what keeps you from sleep


Psalms 23:4 For the time it's your memory of God's previous acts that keep you alive


Matthew 1:20  For the time when one door shuts and another door doesn't open because God is removing the roof of the reality of your existence


Matthew 10:31   For the times we think we are invisible,  inconsequential,  and unimportant to God


Matthew 17:7   When you realize you had all the right facts but in all the wrong order


Matthew 28:5  A surprise reminder of God's opinion of nightmares like tombstones and mortal failure


Mark 4:40-41; 6:50  A surprise reminder of how God and nature relate


Luke 1:13  When a man named "Yahweh remembers"  learns what the name means


Luke 2:!0   When good news became the victory of God

​Brene Brown is a researcher who once almost broke the TED server with her talk on vulnerability.   I personally owe her a debt of gratitude for her insight on anxiety and courage that made me take the first of 1,000 steps to form a new relationship with both.  Her newest book follows many of the themes of previous works and is highly influenced by the current American social and political climate. 


Why should you read this book? 

1. She uses qualitative research findings to address the human experience of belonging and connection.
2. She uses folksy, recent, and highly personal anecdotes to illustrate the inspiration of her research questions.
3. Because you have considered buying plastic forks and knives for Thanksgiving just in case a political discussion breaks out with your relatives.   She writes specifically about false dichotomies that are drawn in social and political dialogues.  These create "us versus them" and "good versus evil" sides to complex issues.
4. She has a heart for those who long for authentic living and yet, are still pained by the rejection that comes with following that path.
5. She balances personal boundaries, and personal responsibility toward the well-being of others particularly well
6. She knows she's going to make some people angry with her honesty, but she carries on and sets an example.

What did I struggle with?

1. This is my second book by Dr. Brown and like the first I felt the material was strongest in the first third and became weaker as the book went to completion.   
2. The definitions of hardship are completely first world and significantly middle to upper class existential crises.   Many of the conclusions are already available in many eastern philosophies on life and conduct (or in the cheesy lines of a country or Journey song).
3. There is a lot of emphasis on being "real" and some discussion on illusion (literally a chapter on bullshit) but very little on how delusion interferes with authenticity.    For me, delusion is when we are convinced we are being real, but with unhealthy consequences that lead to our own self destruction.  Illusion takes place when we are simply trying to confuse or show off for an audience (and that's bullshit).
4. Showing up as yourself takes a lot of spirit/mind work.  The disciplines of how to make this a daily practice need more focus.

Overall, 3 out of 5 bean burritos on this one.

I imagine that being a Christian is mainly an expressive language that communicates about loving God and about being loved by God.  Growing in my faith has become an understanding that loving God means loving what God loves. Generations of prophets, the voices in the wilderness of Israel's history, and the human face of God encountered in Jesus, make it clear that God is both love and justice.   Those that have lost either are soon to recognize they are longing for both, for they are two sides of the same coin.  

God is not ignorance, repression, suppression, or oppression of love and justice.   In the trials and chaos of life, our obstacles are the void created by the absence of love and justice.  Over and over, love and justice are God's words and actions breaking into the void.     When the void is overcome with the truth which becomes evident as caring, compassion,  comfort and the restoration of the dignity of all.     When love pretends to be our motivation without a commitment to justice, our result is selfishness.    When our sense of justice has lost its source in  love then our result is self-righteousness.  God is neither selfish nor self-righteous, and living with both is to enter the void.

When we look at the stories from the sacred scripture we see example after example of our responsibilities toward one another.   If you were to ask Malachi and James what the definition of pure religion is, you will find particular instructions that represent universal values.   You will not find the moralizing and rationalization that defends the prevailing oppression of the day, whether it be the harsh realities of imperial dominance, economic injustice, or patriarchy.   As John Dominic Crossan points out, to a patriarchal society love and justice require that we care for the widow and orphan (and much more),  in a tribal society they provide for the resident alien (like Ruth),  and in a market society they provide aid  to the poor, sick, and hungry.      Since the time of Jesus, progress has been made and also lost on all fronts, in a dizzying yin and yang of human development.


I grew up in a tradition that emphasized the birth and the death of Jesus.  Even the most famous creeds make these two events preeminent in their assessment of his purpose and vocation.     The gap between birth and death,  however, was often minimized or not discussed at all.     The result is the same void we encounter when we lose sight of the love and justice.  This is to me the greatest tragedy of current Christian practice and worship.    In our effort to categorize, philosophize, and proselytize we have reduced the holy art work of a lifestyle love and justice into a mechanical expression of self-serving ideals.   


This error can and must be undone and it starts with encountering, once again, the human face of God on earth.   The face that demonstrated love and justice by walking toward things labeled "unclean",  by eating with and creating relationship with "sinners",  by defying gender roles and demonstrating that many society's structures are often built for the powerful few, who exploit the many, and are blamed on God.    Instead, the human face of God is the one who is waiting as a father to the prodigal and the older son, who is sitting and waiting for the shame ridden woman to visit the well, and who is ready to offer a parable to a self-righteous Pharisee who mentally judges the tearful embrace of Jesus by a sinner.
To love God is to love what God loves which is to act in a way that restores and protects the innate dignity of all beings, cares for the sick and hungry,  comforts in the reality of pain and death,  and loves so thoroughly that it provokes the embrace of the sinner.     This is what you find between his birth and death.   If you can read this, you are still between those two events, too.   May you fill your days with the same ethic of compassion known by the names of love and justice. 

Mark 12:30-31  
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

In the past weeks, I have been part of multiple discussions on finding common ground with others during this time of social division. I am not shy in pronouncing and working toward my own personal ethic of compassion and love. However, I should be more shy about discussing how well I follow through. It’s been too easy to simply brand the other side of any argument as unloving. I’ve been on the giving and receiving end of this accusation, as many of you.

This saying of Jesus is perhaps quoted as much by other faith groups as it is by Christians. It’s easy to stay on love and forget the self. It’s also very common to start with the first half and see your intentions became a train wreck by the time you read “as yourself “. It seems to me that many who draw the ire of others are indeed following this saying without even trying. How is it so easy to be so disparaging, hostile, and angry? Because you hate yourself. You live in regret, remorse, denial, and never ending self judgement. You can’t help acting with such malice toward others because it’s how you treat yourself moment by moment. A living hell on earth.

How shall we cope with those where we find angry disagreement? First, by seeing them as people who may be hostile because they live in self hate. They may be unloving to their neighbor just as they are to themselves. This type of seeing is the start of the compassion in this saying of Jesus. It works because it revives our humanity. You simply can’t love another until you’ve made the peace treaty with your own inner self war which then creates the foundation for acceptance. Maybe then we can strive toward social progress and to peace with our neighbors.