Can We Dance with Fear?
Listen: “Crawling” by Linkin Park and “Landslide” by Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac
(I attended a Linkin Park concert on November 27, 2001 at Hale Arena in Kansas City. Chester Bennington gave an amazing performance. God’s rest and peace upon him.)
I’ve been thinking a lot about fear the last couple of years. Primarily because I have felt an abundance of it every day. I actually don’t like admitting this out loud. I’d rather be brave all the time, but seriously, there are moments in every day when I feel more like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz.
People who study the neuroscience of the brain tell us that fear is one of primal emotions seated in the oldest parts of our brain—the brain stem and the amygdala. When your brain senses danger, your amygdala signals your fight, flight, freeze responses. Our amygdala was designed to protect archaic humans from danger, but in our modern world the ancient amygdala seems to constantly overreact. Fear becomes a constant traveling companion. When I think about the way I experience fear and anxiety, I wonder if I have an overactive amygdala. (It’s an actual possibility.)
When I think back on my whole history with fear, I don’t think I have lived out of fear, I haven’t made most of my decisions in life based on fear, and I haven’t even necessarily tried to avoid fear. In many situations, I have pressed into fear, faced it, and quelled it (like rock climbing, mountain biking, mission work, and church planting). But fear has always been present to some degree.
In the last couple of years, fear has been present daily. Some days it feels insurmountable. So I have look it in the face and asked myself the difficult question: What am I afraid of? I have sat in silence and listened with curiosity to my fear. (I don’t like the feeling of fear so this is not my favorite thing to do.) In the aftermath of my private failures and public shame, I was facing losses on every front—my marriage, my career, my community, my faith, my finances, my home, my self-worth, my confidence. You name it, and I probably lost it. These losses weren’t imaginary; they were my new reality and my amygdala was hijacking me daily. The losses inflicted fear.
I also tried to listen to my deepest fears. Every day I have felt fear of financial insecurity, but is that my deepest fear? Several therapists and psychologists have suggested to me that our deepest fears are abandonment and emotional overwhelm. I have certainly pondered those fears and listened intently. Abandonment by God, by friends, by love ones? Overwhelmed with the consequences of my behavior? Listening with curiosity to my fears is a work in progress.
Despite my daily fears, I have desired to face my fears and move forward in faith most everyday. One thing I have learned through my decades of walking in faith is that faith and fear dance together. This is how it has worked in my life, and how it has worked in the lives of men and women of faith in the Bible.
Faith and fear go together. I know. Some of you may say, “Faith is the opposite of fear.” There may be some truth in that, but faith is definitely not the absence of fear. Faith can give us the courage to take action in the face of fear. That’s why faith and fear dance together. “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6), but great faith is always exercised in the presence of great fear. Courage is an outworking of faith. Nelson Mandela said, “Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
Several years ago I stood on Mount Nebo in Jordan overlooking Israel. I remembered back to when Moses stood on the same spot with Joshua. Joshua would lead the people into the Promised Land. In the first few verses of the book of Joshua, God encouraged Joshua: “Be strong and courageous (vs. 6). Be strong and very courageous (vs. 7). Be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged (vs. 9).” In a few verses, Joshua is challenged to be courageous three times. Why the repetition? Is Joshua deaf? No, but certainly Joshua was afraid. He had just wandered through wilderness for forty years and Moses had died. Faith and fear dance together.
Faith is really a relational word for trust. Do we have enough self-compassion to believe in ourselves? Do we have enough interdependence to believe in others? Do we have enough sense of mystery to believe in a power greater than ourselves? Basil King, a Canadian clergyman, is often quoted in the recovery community, “Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.” Faith comforts me. Calms my fears.
When the Cowardly Lion finally talks to the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard tells him he is “a victim of disorganized thinking.” Fear will do that to us. That frantic, ruminating, OCD mind is fueled by fear—the hamster-wheel brain is what I call it. Damn amygdala. But truthfully, our amygdala is doing its job. We can face it, listen to it, dance with it.
One of my mentors in faith (John Wimber) was fond of saying, “ Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.” There is typically a fear-filled risk to take in any worthwhile adventure. So here I am, feeling like I am back at square one at the age of sixty. A crazy time to start over, a fear-filled time. Spirituality Adventures is a new risk. A new fear-filled, faith-filled adventure. Thanks for joining me. Let’s dance together.
Shalom
©realfredherron, 2021
