Dad’s Not So Afraid Anymore

My father is coming up on 99 years of age. When he was born we thought there was only one galaxy. Can you imagine how much bigger creation has become? No . . . that’s the point. It’s becomes biggeer than imagination. Dad remembers being carried through the streets of Philadelphia celebrating Armistice Day at the end of WW I. He saw the rise of the car, the phone, and refrigeration. He was around for the stock market crash in 1929, the discovery of Penicillin, (just a bit too late to save his father), the creation of the state of Israel and the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then things really got into gear – the 60’s, the Cold War, a landing on the Moon, Information Technology, and a fly-by of Pluto, which by the by, had not been discovered 1917. If you let it sink in, the amount of change is mind boggling.

We were talking about presidential politics last week. He spoke wistfully, “I pay attention to all the news, but I listen to it differently than I used to. It just doesn’t have that much to do with me anymore. How likely am I to even know who the next president will be?” (This came after he pointed out that his Driver’s License expires on this 100th birthday and mused, not in any kind of depressing way mind you, saying, “I wonder which will expire first, the license or me?”)

He has a point. I can understand a certain kind of disconnect from the news these days; I feel a certain amount of distance myself. I’m not likely to live to see the truly horrific results of global warming for instance. I’m not so sure though when I think about my children and certainly my grand-children. The amount of change that is coming their way isn’t mind boggling, it’s something else entirely. Dad had it easy. Because right now change’s cousin is on the rise. There’s a lot of fear brewing . . . right now.

I know I feel it, and it’s not too vague either. It’s hard to say whether the economy with its inherent injustice, will hold long enough for me to live out my years in comfort. I tell myself it will because the other option seems unthinkable, but we’ll have to see. Nevertheless, change is coming; that’s so obvious I feel like I shouldn’t bother saying it. But I will because with change comes the human temptation towards fear and I think we need to pay attention to that. The world isn’t doing too well with change these days. We’re going to have to get better at it – a lot better. We’re watching population shifts right now that will be dwarfed by those coming when the ice caps melt and right now human society’s response is fear. Wealthy societies all over the world are contracting. All it takes is two words to explain what I mean: Donald Trump

But don’t let me judge here. That’s too easy. I’ve got to admit, I’m afraid too. As it happens I’m not afraid of immigration, but that might just be circumstances, because it’s not like I’m immune to the fear of change. I’m afraid of the changes in life that I’m confronting with the loss of a job, a way of being. I used to be afraid of the changes that the church is confronting as attendance slides towards oblivion. But that doesn’t affect me so directly now so I’m less afraid of that . . . until I remember that it’s our religious traditions that hold the clues to dealing with fear.

I’m afraid of losing what has come to be valuable to me. We all are. The question is, “What do we do when we become aware of that?” That’s the moment we need to take stock of what is true and what is false. The moment we know we’re afraid, we need to take stock of what is true and what is false.

“Perfect love casts out all fear” (First John 4:18). I imagine the reverse is true as well. Fear casts out the creative voice of love, or maybe it’s better to say that fear casts a shadow over love – not the gushy kind of love mind you, we’re talking here about the creative impulse urging evolution towards its telos, the love intelligence that characterizes a God of change. That is what God is about, yes? God has been about change since the Big Bang went Bang. It’s not likely to stop now.

So if you’re afraid, that’s the signal. That’s the signal to ask what is true and what is false? What is to be forfeit? What is to be lost? If perfect love casts out all fear, than nothing expressive of  love, nothing that expresses the extraordinary creative beauty of creation, can be lost. If you sit in that shadow for a time, with eyes open, you’ll find that it gives way to the light. What we find is that fear derives from things that are false rather than from the life that is flourishing within us.

I don’t think that is easy, following the shadow back to thay truth. In fact I think it is hard. It’s why we need communities of practice to strengthen our wisdom and resolve. But change is going to keep happening. Resistance is futile. To live outside that fear and into our unique life and love, will take work; it will take a habit of the heart. I’m just saying . . . I think we need more practice than my Dad did.