“FEAR NOT” A Sermon for Halloween
Sunday, October 28, 2007
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
Our country is awash in fear. Some of the fear is based in lived experience. People in the Northeast fear another terrorist attack; people in the Gulfcoast fear another hurricane; people in
When an angel or divine messenger confronts someone in scripture, the first thing they say is, “Fear not.” It is one of the most common expressions in the Bible. Citations in the online Biblical concordance run to 8 pages; it appears 7 times in Genesis alone. It seems that from time immemorial, we human beings have had a lot of fears, and need a lot of reassurance. I’m certainly no angel, but this Halloween sermon has one important message for all of us: Fear not, be not afraid.
Personally, all this fear-mongering disgusts me, and I despise everyone who tries to manipulate us by using it. It’s not that I don’t have a healthy respect for some kinds of fear – a certain amount of fear I actually good for you. Dr. F. Forrester Church, minister of All Souls UU Church in
The 1st is spontaneous fear, what Forrest calls “fright,” and it can save your life, as when a little voice in your head tells you the smooth-talking stranger cannot be trusted, or when, instinctively, you slam on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of you. Fright is a physical, adrenal response to perceived life threats that arises from the part of the brain called the amygdala – what some call “the animal brain” – without passing through the cerebral cortex or rational brain. In most of us, it passes quickly, leaving us with dry mouths and pounding hearts. (When this response occurs when no real danger exists, it’s called a panic attack and requires clinical attention.)
While fright is a physical fear, the 2nd kind is intellectual – our old pal worry. Worry is the product of the rational and imaginative sides of our brain, allowing us to project our fears about what might happen into the future. While fright can be a good thing, giving us the instant response that could save our lives, worry serves no useful purpose. Let me say that again: Worry serves no useful purpose. What if our loved one is in a plane crash? What if I lose my job? What if the levees break again? The cure for worry is to realize that you can’t alter a single thing about the future by fretting about it, and there’s no proof that worrying makes you better able to cope.
The 3rd fear id personal and emotional, what Forrest calls “emotional self-consciousness” which most of us would recognize immediately as insecurity, the fear of being seen as inadequate. This is the fear that makes many people avoid public speaking or occasions where they might be the focus of attention. This is the secret fear that causes so many of us to feel like a fake, no matter how self-confident we may seem from the outside. Almost all of us suffer fro this at least some of the time – I know I do! I’m concerned that my spouse might discover I’m not as wonderful as he thinks I am; I worry y’all might find out I’m that good of a minister. One trick to coping with this fear is to do your very best, and accept that you are “good-enough” – a good-enough spouse, good-enough person, good-enough parent – and that good-enough is truly good enough. Another good coping mechanism is to remember that everybody else is so centered on their insecurity that they’re not concentrating on you at all!
The 4th fear is guilt. Guilt is the fear of being found out, of being caught at wrong-doing. Since every single one of us has done something wrong some time, we are easily tripped into guilt feelings. For example, how many of us feel a vague sense of unease when we see a police car behind us? Even if we are not speeding at that moment, we know we have driven over the speed limit in the past, if not today. While feeling guilty when we’ve actually committed an offense is a healthy sign of a working conscience, amorphous free-floating guilt can contribute to a general sense og anxiety, which can invite all 5 forms of fear into your life.
The 5th and final form of fear is dread, the existential fear of being out of control and not in charge. Dread keeps us up in the middle of the night, the nameless, formless fear that we can’t keep bad things from happening. Our protests won’t stop all wars, our personal efforts to recycle won’t save the earth, and we can’t move hurricanes, stop wildfires, or quiet volcanoes. In the general scheme of things, we human beings are small and insignificant, and realizing this can sometimes bring a person to the edge of despair.
Since August 29, 2005, most New Orleanians have been living in a state of fear so pervasive that we don’t even consciously feel it any more. Most of us are riddled with fear, a lot of it unexamined and unacknowledged. The fear in this area since Katrina is compounded by the fact that all of us have something fearful in our pasts, and the hurricane and its aftermath gave us a hook to hang all our fears on. The costs of living in a constant atmosphere of enveloping fear are both psychic and physical – and the toll is being seen in the rise in stress-related diseases and the climbing rates of suicide and depression in the city. The price of all this fear is too high to pay.
Choosing to live without fear (relatively speaking, since you need to have your healthy fright response) means doing 4 simple but challenging things:
1st, remember it’s not all about YOU. Fear is attracted to an unwarranted sense of self-importance. Forrest suggests suing the “1-hour rule” – whatever it is, it’ll likely be over in an hour, and you can deal with just an hour, can’t you?
2nd, want what you have, and don’t obsess over what you don’t have or what you’ve lost. Focus on those folks in your life who love and care for you. Enjoy the possession, the partner, the job you have, and don’t get depressed over what you lack.
3rd, do what you can; don’t despair over what you can’t. Yes, it’s true – you won’t be able to fix everything that is wrong in the world, and yes, it’s true, life is not fair – but don’t let that stop you from doing what you are able to do, and enjoying what you can.
4th, be who you are; stop imagining a better self who lives a better life. As the Buddhists say, “Be here now,” and don’t focus excessively on the future or the past. Stop pretending to be who you are not – the relief will be tremendous.
In “The Wizard of Oz,” the Cowardly Lion is the most courageous character, yet he always afraid. When I was a girl and learned of all my dad had done in the labor and civil rights movements, I told him I was proud of him for being so brave. “Oh no, Mimi,” he told me, “I wasn’t brave – I was afraid all the time. I just did what had to be done.” True courage is NOT being fearless – courage is not letting your fears rule your life. “Fear not” does not mean having no fear. You will still be afraid, but freedom lies in choosing to go on, to walk through, live through, your fears, and come out on the other side, your true and authentic self, whole and safe and free. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!
