Lenten Journey: Emotional Exploration – Fear

This reflection begins with what seems like a simple question: what am I afraid of? What causes me to fear?

I wouldn’t say that I fear death. I’m not looking to finish life sooner rather than later. I have dreams and hopes to continue to enjoy life and watch my children grow up. But I’m not afraid of death itself.

When I was younger, I would say that I had a fear of being inconsequential but I had a very narrow view of what consequential would be. I was probably too concerned that if my name didn’t have reason to be in a history book, I hadn’t made a mark of significant enough consequence.

My view of being consequential has changed over the years. I’m less concerned with being a consequential person and more concerned with being a person of consequence. I want to make a difference. So, I’m afraid that my life won’t have purpose, that I won’t make a difference.

Looking at Willcox’ version of the Wheel of Emotion, I see “Scared” as one of the six basic emotions. Connected to Scared are other feelings such as Anxious and Insecure. These would have been the emotions connected to my older fear of being an inconsequential person. The feeling that resonates today is Insignificant.

But 55 years of life has taught me a lot of things. One of them is that there were 3 ½ billion people on Earth when I was born and now we are approaching 8 billion people.  The large majority are going to be of significance in ways that don’t measure on a Richter Scale sensitive enough to notice their impact amongst 8 billion people.

So rather than fearing failure for not curing cancer or changing the trajectory of the planet, my response to this fear is not to allow it to consume me in a desperate attempt to be notoriously relevant. Instead, I look at what purpose means in the context of 8 billion people.

I have made my small mark on history. Those stories will not be written in any history books. They won’t even show up in Wikipedia, even if I write them. I’m comfortable with my quiet contributions.  

My fear today is that my efforts won’t matter. Not that they won’t matter in the sense that the world will change but just simply that they won’t matter in any of the spheres of my life. I suppose that sphere mostly revolves around my children. Will they thrive? Will they be good human beings? Will they be marked by my fears and insecurities?

On a day to day basis, those fears do not creep up on me. Most days, I feel like a good father who is giving them the guidance and freedom they need. Most days, I feel like I have made a positive difference in the lives of the people I have known or worked with. But every once in a while, doubt creeps in. Sometimes it is doubt that says, “You’re not doing enough.” Other days, it is doubt that says, “What you’ve done with your life won’t be significant enough to matter for long.” But that one is that old “history book” stuff. I’m here to do what I can now. My legacy won’t be in history books, it will be in my children, in the example I’ve given to others. If I take a deep breath, I find it easy to let go of those voices that tell me I’m not enough.

What I’ve also learned in 55 years is that fear tends to lead towards conduct that is contrary to character. So, I try to work against the onset of fear with the things that I do to keep myself centered – journaling, meditating, praying, and literally physically grounding exercises.

Do you know where your fear comes from? Do you know how you respond to it or what you do to center yourself?

-------------------------

You are welcome to take this journey in solitude in your own personal journal or share your reflections. If anything that you do makes you think you might want to continue a journey using Spiritual Direction, now or in the future, you can make an appointment with me through my website: 

www.RedRocksSDC.com 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Loving Your Enemies, Serving Your Loved Ones

If I were to sum up my theology in a single sentence, it would be “We are all children of God, worthy of Love, Forgiveness, and Grace.” So, you would think that the sermon series that my pastors have been preaching for the past five weeks would not be a challenge. Their topic has been Loving Your Enemies which, in theory, should be simple. If we are all children of a loving God than those who are my enemies are recipients of God’s love just as much as me. But this has not been an easy topic. Yes, in theory, I have no problem with seeing my enemies as children of God and loving them as God loves them. But, as is so often case, things get tough when the rubber meets the road. The primary passage that is the source of this commandment comes from Matthew 5:43-48. 43  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you , 45  that you may be children of
Read more

Hell and Damnation

According to my mother, my grandmother whom I called Nana, was obsessed with whether or not she would go to Heaven or Hell as her life came closer to its end. I’ll bet some of you had a Nana. Someone who cared for you when you were sick, ate the burnt pork chop while she served you the one that was perfectly cooked, went to church every Sunday, treated the people around her kindly. She wasn’t perfect. I’m sure she had her flaws. I’m sure I don’t know what they were. But at the end of her life, she was consumed by fear that she wasn’t good enough. Not good enough for Heaven… so, bad enough for Hell. “No truly accomplished New Testament scholar, for instance, believes that later Christianity’s opulent mythology of God’s eternal torture chamber is clearly present in the scriptural texts. It’s entirely absent from St. Paul’s writings; the only eschatological fire he ever mentions brings salvation to those whom it tries (1 Corinthians 3:15). Neither is it found in the other New Testamen
Read more

Names and Labels (Top Posted)

Welcome! I’m going to start by talking about Names and Labels and explaining the Name I have given to this blog. Names and Labels can be so constraining and revealing at the same time. They put us in boxes of assumptions that go along with those names and labels. They can lead us astray by setting up expectations that any of us can be fully defined by our labels and names. At the same time, they can offer a glimpse into our identities that, as long as they are understood to be simply a beginning, can offer some insights into how we see ourselves. As author Bill Bryson wrote in The Mother Tongue: English & How It Got That Way , “…there must be some conventions of usage. We must agree to spell cat c-a-t and not e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t and we must agree that by that word we mean a small furry quadruped that goes meow and sits comfortably on one’s lap and not a large lumbering beast that grows tusks and is exceedingly difficult to housebreak.” So, yes, Names and Labels have meanings
Read more