September 12^th: Fear

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church
of Lafayette, Indiana
by Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

 Sermon

Wednesday evening will begin the New Year on the Jewish Calendar.  The High Holy Day Season -- the days of Awe.  It is a time of reflection and introspection.  The word awe has been twisted out of recognition in our time, but it’s said that religious awe is a blend of admiration, fear, and wonder.  Awe is the sort of thing you can feel on a clear night, when the vast sky is crowded with stars and you feel your smallness and the smallness of all that is beyond you looking back in awe as well.  Awe is the sort of thing felt at the side of the great falls at Niagara – one’s physical delicacy and the gathered strength of that rushing water.  The sort of thing felt in learning of a life of great creativity, love, courage, and generosity.  Awe – is love, longing, mixed with fear.  We are creatures of Awe – unless we have lost the capacity to feel – we are beings of awe.

Awe tells us of our place – both of our greatness and our smallness, of our connection to an infinity and our certain finitude.

It’s a knife edge – between wonder and fear -- on that edge is our awareness of life – how we are of life and how precious that is.  It’s a knife edge – a delicate balance and that awareness can be lost, obscured, or mutilated.  So at this time of awe, I want to reflect on fear. So that we can seek a balance on that sharp edge better and find for ourselves the freedom to choose and to live beyond fear.

Back in June, when I decided to preach on fear on this date, I had no idea that it would be a cover story in this most recent issue of the UU world.  I had no idea that the level of terror would have risen so high, that tragedies would so multiply, and I did not think that newspapers, radio shows, media sources everywhere would become addicted to terror beyond what we had already been experiencing.  It’s just part of the terrible synchronicity of our times. It’s true that after September 11, 2001, we knew tragedy more deeply as a nation – but that sense of tragedy has been magnified so that people are more and more concerned about terror – and we are more fearful.

Friday, parts of the Purdue campus were sealed off and buildings were evacuated because of a rental truck – full of stereo equipment – our level of fear and anxiety is elevated.  I wondered how frightened the person was whose truck it turned out to be as he or she was questioned by police. 

Humans have always lived with fear – it is central to our vulnerable humanness.  Our vulnerability makes life so precious and our sense of its preciousness make us aware that life is always at risk.  And not because we are always at Orange Alert.  In the UU World, the Rev. Rebecca Parker said, “I’m one of those people who didn’t experience the world as any more frightening on September 12^th than it was on September 10^th, because I already experienced the world as a place where life is at risk in significant ways.”

I admit it was that way for me, too.  The world did not change on September 11^th – I did.  That date became for me a challenge to learn how to live more and more creatively with the fear, through the fear, and beyond it.

First that means understanding it.

Fear is a natural component of the human psyche – a component meant to enhance our ability to survive.  We have the bioelectric circuitry for fear – just as we have the circuitry for awe – it is our humanity breathing in us.  It can be life-saving.

Harriet Lerner, psychologist and writer, said: “While no one enjoys feelings anxious, the experience of anxiety can be protective and life-preserving.  Anxiety is a signal to pay attention.”

I’m sure that each one of us has had experiences when a twinge or spasm of anxiety enabled us to recognize a danger before we were harmed – or we may have had experiences in which we disregarded that anxiety.  Lerner says: “Doctors are taught that when you hear galloping hoofbeats, first think horses, not zebras.  (Think what’s normal not what’s bizarre.)  She goes on: When it comes to parenthood my husband thinks horses, I think zebras.”

While there are times when the hoofbeats really are beating down behind you and split second decisions are called for – they are few.  Most of the time what is called for is more thinking – if anxiety is a signal to pay attention, then, perhaps, it is a call – like so much of life – to well – pay attention.  It is when attention isn’t paid that the dangers of fear and the crippling effect of anxiety and fear can be seen.

Fear can be healthy or unhealthy.  Fear isn’t simply a useful thing that awakens us to real danger – it mutates into worry, anxiety, insecurity.  Because of this fear can be used or even manufactured to manipulate people.  Of course, this is easy to see in advertisements when the skinny kid gets sand kicked over him, the woman with dandruff hears terrible voices in her head, and the girl on the date walks over to the fancy car instead of the junker. 

Have you ever slipped on ice or tripped over your own shoelaces in front of some people.  It can cause a momentary feeling of embarrassment – jeez – where were my feet?  Once or twice I have stepped on the hem of my dress while walking up or down these stairs.  But the feeling passes as we recognize that everyone trips and falls at some point and no one really cares.  Lerner shares the story of an insecure client new at a job and going out with co-workers for the first time, who trips and falls.  She makes it through the lunch but can’t seem to make herself go out with them again and begins to take lunch in her own office.

When that embarrassment doesn’t pass it tends to be because it is rooted in fear of shame, in a sense of inadequacy.  Instead of a momentary prickle of heat there’s a deeper burning that can go straight to the heart and cripple a person’s choices.  Like staying in for lunch, instead of going out and making friends.  And there are far deeper fears that are rooted in far deeper shame.  Surviving abuse or neglect or oppression.  They get rooted there when who we are is targeted and demeaned.  We can be afraid of something real that we can see we can become afraid of a rumor or a photo or a shadow cast by a bright light behind a small object.  The reassurances and proof will not calm our fear – because it is not rooted in the thing itself – but in a far deeper fear.

Being aware counts for everything when it comes to knowing, understanding and being stronger than fear.  In part this is because the deep, vague, unacknowledged fears –the fears held at the outer edge of our minds are the most dangerous.  As Lerner wrote: “There is one kind of fear we need to decode – the fear we don’t feel at all (at least not consciously).”

They take deep root.  A simple example -- Did you every drop and break anything as a child?  Do you remember being told oh – that happens! Or watch a little more carefully?  Or do you remember being told – “that was stupid, or clumsy, you are stupid and clumsy?  Shame and the fear of being shamed again, can mean the difference between being more at ease in the world and less, means the difference between freedom of heart and mind and a prison.  The fears take deep root and the response become automatic.

I think with hope, on a more complex level, of the protestors in Selma – who because of a change in their psychological context – a belief in their full humanity – were in fact targeted and treated as less than human but maintained their focus, their principles, and their dignity.  They were not demeaned – their self-esteem grew in spite of generations of shame. I think of the suffragists who were jailed and beaten and released to work another day. I think of those who survived the brutality of the Vietnam War and keep going back into places of conflict and suffering again and again because they can be of service.  I think of the Aid workers in all nations and all times who go into a nation knowing that they may be hated for their nationality but they will stay to provide aid and a human/humane face.

When I looked at the coverage of the memorials of 9/11 I saw much grief, courage, and dignity in the faces of mourners.  Yet, when I hear about great patriotic displays I wonder if that is meant to speak not to the grief – but to some hidden sense of shame – that in some unspeakable way our nation was shamed by the attack – as terrorists intend always in acts of terror.  As nations around the world reached out to us on 3 years ago it was in a spirit of fellowship – they, too, had suffered, been attacked, and survived.  We were not diminished by the attack – but somehow – for a moment became part of the world’s history of struggle and suffering and for that we could be embraced.  Then, as voices began to declare on one side that we had been attacked because we were the land of the free and the home of the brave – and on the other side that somehow we were the land of greed and empire and that was why we had been attacked – as those voices rose in opposition to one another the voices of shame – the voices of fellowship fell silent.  And when the flags wave and we are told to stand united I wonder if we are not somehow masking our sense of inadequacy.

For surely – we are vulnerable. 

Mark, my husband, shared with me that, as he drove back from Kokomo yesterday he saw a man standing on a bridge over the highway.  He was standing firm with a serious look on his face and an American Flag billowing in his hands.  Mark sensed his sincerity in being there – holding that flag for September 11^th.  When I heard the story I wondered – would the families of the people from the other 81 nations who were killed on that date feel honored by his gesture?  Was the flag for the soldiers who have died in Iraq?  Was it because he knew no other way to honor his own sense of loss and helplessness and the strength that he so much wanted to reach for in response to those things?  Because we will reach for something. 

Surely – we are vulnerable.

We are vulnerable, also, because fear is contagious.  One highly anxious person in a room can raise the anxiety level – and not just by shouting fire.  In communities, in families, in churches, in nations – fear is contagious.  Unhealthy fear can travel through a community in the form of gossip, name-calling, paranoia and not be seen for what it is – because it can be masked as concern.  You can see this openly in public elections.  But it can be far more subtle than presidential politics.  Fear is contagious because our feelings are often contagious – because we are dependent upon one another.

Fear’s contagious – because we look to one another for authentic contact – for human connection.  If you look into eyes which are masked because that person is avoiding some deep fear – you will find no harbor.  We look to one another and we see one another – and that’s one of the keys to our walking with the fear.  Parker says that if we walk with the fear, we will find real companions on the road – or in the air. 

You’ll know this if you have ever ridden in an airplane which encountered turbulence – the first thing people tend to do is look to each other for reassurance – does that business man look nervous or has he been through just this sort of things a thousand times?  Lerner says that people who don’t fly say they don’t fly because they are afraid of flying – but really it’s simply because they don’t buy the tickets.  I’ve flown enough to know that plenty of people who are scared are up in the air – not because the fear is gone – but because they bought the ticket and took the ride.  My brother in law swears that the more you fly the more comfortable you become with it. 

And that is one of the keys to freedom from unhealthy fear.  It does not come because we wait to feel better before we risk.  It does not come because we wait to feel safe.  It comes because somehow we break free of the prison of fear and allow it to lead us into new adventure. Whether it is on an airplane or in a difficult conversation.

Because this is a time of looking inward I ask you today and for the next days to reflect upon – what your real fears are.  What are they?  Not the one you are willing to say aloud – but the one that sticks in your throat – or in your heart.  What freedoms have they cost you?  What adventures?  What have they cost those you care about?  It’s not easy to grow beyond fear – to know it, experience it, not forget about it but to creatively live in it.  This week I am raising the painful questions – and offering some outline of the path toward that creativity.  It doesn’t entail buying a product or endorsing a candidate.   

I think of the woman that I met two years ago at a retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh. A woman who had lost her husband on September 11^th.  She was tired and bereft.  Yet, she was concerned that our national anxiety would lead us to war – but was too afraid to face the media -- who were hounding all the families.  Then, despite all her protests of fear, she did write something and send it out to the press – finding a medium she could live with between the hiding she wanted to do and the public face that the media wanted.

Individuals and nations both weave nets of safety – and there are times when vigilance is important.  When added caution makes sense.  There are times that our caution and our healthy fear can save us.  But, it can also be the safety net that we set for ourselves that sometimes becomes the net we get caught in, floundering.

For surely – we are vulnerable.

             But we are far less vulnerable when we are truly aware and really seeing – when we are paying attention to the messages of our fear – not just the superficial messages.

Fear and risk are real – our lives are fragile and poised on a delicate edge.  The first great hope comes when I think back to other eyes.  On and after September 11^th people filled with conscious fear looked through dust into one another’s eyes and found comfort, strength, even heroism and compassion. Courage.

So courage must be both attainable and contagious as well.  We can look into one another’s eyes -- witness one another’s heroism and find fear something we can learn from and live with.  In our personal lives, among persons, our fears, our rigid habits, avoidances, anxieties are signals that there’s healing to be done.  Perhaps this is also true in the global world, among nations. 

We have to live in a world of realism – to understand real danger when we see it – but we also need to know when it is our own shadow we are fearing.  Or when the thing we fear may be less horrible than that which we are choosing to do about it. 

To choose to live on the fearful side is to lose the balance of life.  To choose to live in anger toward that which is feared is also to lose the balance of life and be cut on that knife edge.  Pema Chodron says: “We have so much fear of not being in control.  Yet the true nature of things is that you're never in control.  We can stop looking for some idealized moment when everything is simple and secure.  Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over to annihilation can that which is indestructible in us be found.”

And it is essential to find that which is indestructible in us.  We can comfort one another, we can come together – but at some point life and history call us beyond our fear of flying, or dating, or whatever and call us beyond ourselves into the world.  It is that indestructible thing that I want to talk about next week – because I have come to find that it is real. 

I think of these days of awe as a time in which we reflect upon ourselves, our choices, our love, our freedoms, and fears and look down with intelligence, longing, and hope upon that knife edge of being.  If we have not lost the capacity to feel or hidden it too carefully away, we are beings of awe.  Awe tells us of our place – both of our greatness and our smallness, of our connection to an infinity and our certain finitude – of the scope of our challenge and the power we have to write something of precious value into the book of life. On a knife edge between wonder and fear.  On that edge is our strength and courage.  On that edge we can find that which is truly indestructible in us – brilliant, strong, and completely whole.  It is September 12^th -- let us move deeply, let us live intelligently, let us work creatively.  So that we may find a balance on that sharp edge better and find for ourselves the freedom to choose and to live beyond fear.

Readings

Albert Camus, existential thinker and activist wrote:

We live in terror because man can no longer tap that part of his nature, which he recaptures in contemplating the beauty of nature and of human faces; because we live in a world of abstractions, of bureaus and machines, of absolute ideas and of crude messianism. We suffocate among people who think they are absolutely right, whether in their machines or in their ideas.” 

Harriet Lerner from Fear and Other Uninvited Guests:

There is one kind of fear we need to decode – the fear we don’t feel at all (at least not consciously).  When we can’t fully face our anxiety and clarify its sources, we tend to act it out instead – attacking a colleague, nagging our child for the twelfth time, or working all weekend on a project that was good enough on Friday afternoon – all the while convincing ourselves that these responses are totally rational and warranted.

When anxiety is chronically high it leads to more serious outcomes such as greed, bigotry, scapegoating, violence, and other forms of cruelty.  In these anxious times, on both the personal and political fronts, ideas are embraces and decisions are made not on the basis of clear thinking that considers both history and the future, but rather on basis of hearts filled with fear.  We owe it to ourselves and others to learn how to recognize behaviors that reflect and escalate anxiety – and to manage our own anxiety so it doesn’t get played out in hurtful ways.

We may believe that anxiety and fear don’t concern us because we avoid experiencing them.  We may keep the scope of our lives narrow and familiar, opting for sameness and safety.  We may not even know that we are scared of success, scared of failure, rejection, criticism, conflict, competition, intimacy, or adventure, because we rarely test the limits of our competence and creativity.  We avoid anxiety by avoiding risk and change.  Our challenge:  To be willing to become more anxious, via embracing new situations and stepping more fully into our lives.

Some people (James Bond comes to mind) escape anxiety and fear because they are disconnected from their emotional lives.  I confess to envying such people – but I’m also aware that such courage comes at a cost. Feelings are a package deal and you can’t avoid or deny the painful ones without also forfeiting part of your humanity.  Fear may not be fun – but it signals that we are fully alive.

To Introduce the Shofar:

The search for truth and meaning is not a hobby, a Sunday outing, an intellectual exercise.

The search for truth and meaning

is a necessity in a world where so much seems uncertain and beyond our control

and yet a world where so much is shaped by our choices and by our hands.

It is a lifeline in world where our fates are so profoundly connected.

The blast of the shofar pierces habit, hobby, false objectivity,

The blast of the shofar silences entertainment and calls us to the search in earnest, calls us to pay attention, to be mindful.

Let the sound of the shofar enter body, let it sound in your mind and your heart awakening every cell

cleansing discomfort and anxiety

awakening awareness and compassion and action

And let the blast of the shofar carry your full bodied awareness forward, outward, through this congregation and into that world that so desperately needs what you have to bring to it.

Let our hearts follow the sound of this shofar far beyond our walls.

May all hearers awaken from forgetfulness and transcend the path of anxiety and sorrow

May they begin a new journey deeper into the book of life.

May we awaken,

May we begin

May we all be inscribed again in the book of life.