There is a balm in Gilead To make the wounded whole, There is a balm in Gilead To heal the sin-sick soul.
— African-American Spiritual
There is a moment in the film Elizabeth when the queen (played by Cate Blanchett) says, "Fear creates fear."
Fear creates fear.
Fear, unchecked and unexamined, can stain our convictions and stir a kind of restlessness that we often mistake for righteousness. We stoke fear because it appeals to our desire for control. It appeals to our preference for the kind of safety that demands little in the way of introspection. Any invitation to consider our own faults is silenced by the preservation of discord.
We cannot bear that things are not what we want them to be or what they are supposed to be. So we defer to fear because it feels like strength. Or is it an illusion of strength, but with such an intensity as to feel real, substantial, even necessary?
Now, is fear all "bad"?
No. I do think there is something in us that responds appropriately to the injustice and ugliness around us, but we cannot bear that burden forever. There must be some kind of relief, some way forward that doesn't appeal to our darker tendencies. There is room to relent, to admit that the higher stakes are not wholly dependent on our passion, our anger, our fear. What if things are bigger than we think? What if redemption, as messy as it often is, hides in plain sight? And what if it does not undermine our legitimate concerns but perhaps widens our periphery to see new ways, learn new perspectives, hear new stories. In a world controlled by deceit-ridden algorithms that pretend empathy and celebrate division, we can commit to the harder task of love.
We can be like an aloe plant, that draws from a deeper well and flourishes in the desert. This plant is beautiful, but its beauty transcends mere appearance. Its hardiness gives way to its healing properties. This is the kind of beauty we need — a beauty concerned with the fruit found in dry and deserted places. A beauty concerned not with the appearance of civility but with the healing that happens when we seek out deeper wells. The ground may be dry and parched, but that’s often where the fruit of the spirit grows, even flourishes.
I’m weary of the catastrophizing — the quickness to cynicism, even despair. Recently in conversation, someone, in talking about the upcoming presidential election, said “if [blank] wins, its game over.” That’s just not true. Neither candidate will save or destroy democracy. And, yes, I understand that legitimate fears remain (re: both candidates), but we are capable of handling such fears with more care, stewarding it toward more redemptive ends.
We simply cannot carry the amount of data and information coming at us, much less sift through it. We can slow down before we speak, post, etc. We can practice humility in such a way that we are at least open to the possibility of being wrong, or worse....the other person being right!
There are a lot of things we can’t control, but there are some things we can control, like…loving our neighbor…whether our neighbor is a liberal, MAGA, a Nickelback fan, loves Thomas Kincaid paintings, cries in every God's Not Dead movie, or talks on speaker phone in public.
I’m a mess, regardless of who I vote for. There’s plenty of room for me to begin with my own heart. A heart full of fear (and a long list of other things) but a heart still being shaped.
My heart longs for perfect love.
Perfect love casts out fear.
And that kind of love creates…love.