Why Are You Afraid? (Weavings XXVII, 3)

volume x x vii, number 3

A JOU R NA L OF T HE CHR ISTI A N SPIR IT UA L LIFE

“I try to breathe slowly and deeply of the breath of the One who prays for me. As my heart ceases to pound, my tight muscles begin to release....New light begins to enter my darkness, new options, hopeful visions.” see page: 4

Fea st and Fear

Lynne M. Deming

Karen A. Greenwaldt

editor ex ecutiv e director of publishing

gener al secr etary gbod

Gina Manskar editori al assistant

Robin Pippin contr act edit0r

Nelson Kane art director

Sarah Wilke publisher

Anne Broyles E. Glenn Hinson Rueben P. Job Parker J. Palmer Don E. Saliers Luther E. Smith, Jr. adv isory board

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Weavings ® (issn 0890-6491) (gst 128363256) (Vol. XXVII, No. 3, May/Jun/Jul 2012) is published quarterly (Nov, Feb, May, Aug) for $29.95 per year (Canadian/Foreign 37.95, prepaid U.S. funds), or $49.95 for two years, by The Upper Room. On Canadian/ Foreign orders, please add $8 for shipping. ©2012 by The Upper Room. Art used by permission of the artists. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. Editorial office: P.O. Box 340004, Nashville, TN 37203-0004. Tel: 615.340.7254. Fax: 615.340.7267. E-mail: Weavings@upperroom.org. Online: www.weavings.org. Periodicals postage paid at Nashville, TN and at additional mailing offices.

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The scripture quotations identified in the text are used by permission: nrsv scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved; scripture quotations marked niv are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved; esv scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001

by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved; nlt scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. ceb scripture quotations are from the Common English Bible, copyright© 2011; all rights reserved. The Message by Eugene H. Peterson, copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved. ap indicates author’s paraphrase and at, author’s translation. The poem on p. 41 is excerpted from Faces by the Wayside: Persons Who Encountered Jesus on the Road. Used by Permission of Wipf and Stock Publishing. www.wipfandstock.com. The article on p. 44 is adapted from Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen by Rachel G. Hackenberg (Paraclete Press, 2011). The prayer from Rueben P. Job on p. 48 is from A Guide to Prayer for All God’s People (Nashville: The Upper Room, 1990), p. 253. Used by permission.

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Why Are You Afraid?

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Fe a s t an d Fe ar

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C onf i d e n c e :

F l o r a S l o ss o n W u e l l n e r

I Have Everything I Need Jan Johnson

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Th e De se r t in My Life

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Epekt a s i s:

Elsy Aré valo

Antidote to Fear of Change E. Glenn Hinson

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Hol din g on Throu gh Wave s of Fe ar Anne Marie Drew

departments:

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Faith ’s Bit t e r Foe

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Fe ar in a Han df ul of Du s t

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Di sc ipl e

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Fin din g th e C ourage t o Pray

2 In t roduc t ion 3 C on t r i bu tor s 48 Cl osi ng P r ay er V isit us on the web for more features, and more ways to participate in the Weavings community: www.weavings.org

Philip Huber

Tit us O’Brya nt

J. Barrie Shepherd

R achel G. Hackenberg

introduction

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n her article “Conf idence: I Have Everything I Need,” Ja n Joh n son rem i nd s u s t h at t he most f re quent command in Scripture is “Don’t be afraid.”

“This surprising command bursts in upon a world in which we eat, sleep, and breathe fear,” says New Testament scholar N.T. Wright in his book Following Jesus. “We emerge from the warmth of the womb into the cold of the cosmos, and we’re afraid of being alone, of being unloved, of being abandoned.”

In this issue, our authors help us name the fears that loom large and small in our daily experiences, and then point us to spiritual resources and disciplines from Christian tradition that can sustain us in faith when we are afraid.

Flora Slosson Wuellner helps us to recall, in fearful times, that the One who has fed us the bread of the Presence is there for us on the risky seas as well, just as Jesus was for the disciples on their turbulent night at sea (Mark 6:47–52).

From the choppy waters to the desert of fear, Elsy Arévalo invites us to listen to the voice of God in our hearts in the face of the greatest fear—the fear of death—and f ind that we are drawn closer to God through this experience.

E. Glenn Hinson addresses a fear that many of us face regularly—the fear of change—with a most intriguing antidote, epektasis, the idea of stretching forward to what lies ahead, helping us to forget those things behind (Phil. 3:13).

The power of a praying community centers Anne Marie Drew on a harrowing ride to Cuba on a Coast Guard Fast Boat. Philip Huber f inds a comrade in Abraham when dealing with those moments of anxiety that plague daily life.

Titus O’Bryant f ights off the fear of leaving no impact on the world by focusing on planting good seeds into others’ lives that will grow deep and tall like bur oak trees. J. Barrie Shepherd poetically brings us full circle back to the disciples’ experience of the storm at sea.

We close the issue with Rachel Hackenberg, who invites us into the practice of writing our prayers as a way to move from fear to faith. Whether she wrote on the back of an electricity bill envelope or in the pages of a treasured journal, this author found that expressing her heart in written words gave her courage to overcome a long-held fear of praying.

May you come away from this issue of Weavings with the ability to name your fears in the presence of the Holy One who reminds us “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

Lynne M. Deming

Editor • Watch for the new Weavings digital magazine coming later this year!

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contributors

Flor a Slosson Wuellner is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. After serving several parishes, she moved into the ministry of spiritual renewal, teaching as an adjunct faculty member at Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley, California. Flora works in spiritual direction, retreat leadership, and writing. Her latest book is Miracle: When Christ Touches Our Deepest Need. She lives in Fair Oaks, California.

Jan Johnson is the author of twenty books and three personal retreat guides including Trusting God for Everything: Psalm 23. She holds a D.Min. in Ignatian Spirituality and Spiritual Direction. She is a spiritual director and, currently, a frequent retreat and conference speaker. www.janjohnson.org Elsy ArÉvalo serves as the Assistant Director of the Center for Religion and Spirituality at Loyola Marymount University (http://www.lmu.edu/academics/extension/crs.htm). She has worked in leadership in the nonprofit sector providing vision, direction, and oversight as well as developing training curricula and materials for organizations serving the poor and marginalized. Elsy is in the process of completing her Masters in Pastoral Theology at LMU. E. Glenn Hinson is Professor Emeritus of Spirituality and Church History, Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond. A prolific author, Glenn has contributed numerous articles to Weavings and has served on its advisory board from the beginning. His autobiography, A Miracle of Grace, will be published in the fall of 2012.

Anne Marie Drew is an English professor at the United States Naval Academy where she has served as Department Chair, Faculty Senate President, and theatre director. A member of the Pastoral Council of St. Mary’s Catholic Church, she writes about everything from Shakespeare to spaghetti sauce. When not weaving words, she weaves yarn into blankets on her loom. Her favorite name these days is Nona (Italian for “Grandmother”).

Philip Huber lives with his wife and four children in Syracuse, New York. He enjoys a long walk in the woods, a strong cup of hot tea, the smell of a wood fire in the air, and a good book in his hands. By day he is a retail manager and by night a writer. Phil blogs at www. aploddingpilgrimage.blogspot.com.

Titus O’Bryant is a husband, father, writer, and follower of Jesus. Ever since he attended Dallas Theological Seminary, the state of Texas has swallowed him up and refused to release this far-from-home Buckeye. He currently contributes to the work of God’s kingdom as a research writer for a ministry in Plano, Texas.

J. Barrie Shepherd is Minister Emeritus of The First Presbyterian Church in New York City and has preached and lectured extensively across the United States and Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe, and Africa. He was named Noble lecturer at Harvard in 1995 and Lyman Beecher Lecturer at Yale in 2002. Shepherd’s poetry has appeared frequently in such magazines as Weavings, Christian Century, and The New Republic.

R achel Hackenberg is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, currently serving a congregation in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She has written Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Pen and Writing to God for Kids (to be released in 2012). Learn more about Rachel at Faith and Water. http://faithandwater.blogspot.com/

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Feast When evening came, the boat was out on the sea ... When he saw they were straining at the oars against an adverse wind, he came towards them early in the morning, walking on the sea .... But when they saw him walking on the sea they thought it was a ghost and cried out; for they all saw him and were terrif ied. But immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take heart, it is I; do not be afraid.” Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

(Mark 6:47–52, nrsv)

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errified? Of course they were. The disciples were cold, wet through, exhausted from rowing all night on a choppy sea against the wind. They had just come from the bewildering experience of Jesus feeding the hungry crowds with food coming from who knew where. They were headed for dark shores where who knew what awaited them. It was all too much!

They must have felt as the old Irish prayer expresses it: “O God, your seas are so vast, and my boat is so small!”

And now, on top of all this, they all see a mysterious f igure walking on the waves towards them in the darkness of early dawn. Was it a

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and Fear b y F l o r a S l o ss o n W u e l l n e r

ghost? Perhaps they wondered if it might be a vengeful demon of the kind Jesus cast from the possessed. Perhaps they thought of John the Baptist, so recently and shockingly beheaded. Was he coming to warn them? Anything was possible.

Perhaps Jesus had meant to walk ahead to guide them, but seeing their fear he told them who he was and got into the boat with them.

They were still befuddled with anxiety. ...for they did not understand about the loaves, but their hearts were hardened.

(Mark 6:52, nrsv)

A baff ling comment. What did yesterday’s bread loaves have to do with today’s adverse waves and confused fear?

Bread and fear are again highlighted in a later stor y. After yet another miraculous feast, the disciples are again in their boat off on another journey, and become deeply agitated when they discover they have no food supplies. Jesus asks them: “ Why a re you t a l k i ng a b out h av i ng no bre a d? D o you st i l l not perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? ... And do you not remember?”

(Mark 8:17–18, nrsv) w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 5

No, they did not understand that his feast for the f ive thousand was more than producing a miraculous meal. All his acts of wonder had meanings below meanings. With the feast of yesterday, he was enacting a parable of the inexhaustibility of God’s immediate abundant presence forever, whether in the wilderness, straining at the oars, hungry, frightened, or facing the unknown.

From Genesis to Revelation, though complex, diverse, written by different authors over centuries, the scriptures witness with one voice to the renewed miracle of God ’s immediate, intimate, inexhaustible presence. As with one voice they speak of the radical transformations we can experience through this presence.

The ceaseless power of this presence was celebrated daily in Jerusalem’s temple. Each morning fresh loaves of bread were brought to the high altar.

These daily loaves were called by the simple but astounding name, the “bread of the Presence.” Jesus refers pointedly to this sacramental bread when he reminds the Pharisees in their ritualistic scrupulosity that David and his famished companions had boldly come to the holy high altar and eaten of that bread (Mark 2:25–26). An appalling desecration, or a radical act of trust in the giftedness of God’s presence?

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Was Jesus, when he gave us this prayer, thinking of that “bread of the Presence” radiating from the altar to human hearts?

I have been fed so deeply at God ’s feasts. My life overf lows with the living bread of comfort, guidance, healing renewal; feasts of eye, ear, touch, sound, scent; feasts of communal love and encouragement.

Ceaselessly I have been fed the bread of the Presence. But vulnerable to fear, so often I forget about the feasts. I no longer understand. My heart is “hardened.”

We usually think that a hardened heart means no compassion. It means much more than that. It is a manifestation of fear. If our fear is acute, our whole body and emotional systems contract, clamp down, harden into a solid ball to survive. Our breath is shallow and our hearts pound. No fresh air or light can enter. Nothing exists but terror.

If our fear is a chronic anxiety we become gradually closed off, a walled city, gates barred, always on guard, a hardened defensive machine.

If our fear has become rage, we harden into a weapon of attack, against all we perceive as threat, or against those whose vulnerability reminds us of our own. Most abusers, without conscious awareness of it, are deeply frightened people.

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Vulnerable

Whatever the cause and form of our fear, we to fear, instinctively harden to sur vive. We build walls against each other and against ourselves. We put so of ten I on masks of power, and our muscles become body a r mor. To rele a se the m a sk s a nd the a r more d forget about muscles is terrifying. Our fear screams at us that the feasts the only way to endure, to stay alive is to harden into resistance, defense, or attack.

Years ago at a retreat one of the women told us a story that changed my spiritual life. I have so often told and written about this story.

She had rescued an abandoned, frightened young dog who had not only been abused, but also half drowned. He desperately needed cleansing and medication for his wounds, but not until she began to lower him into the warm tub did she realize how terrif ied he was of water. His abusers had tried to kill him that way.

He screamed and fought, his whole body a solid mass of fear. Very quickly realizing that there was only one way to reach him through his panic, she stripped to her underwear and got into the water with him along with all the f leas, dirt, and blood from them both. She held him, stroking him gently, quietly talking to him until he began slowly to relax. Then the deep cleansing could begin.

I know of no better story of the Incarnation and the way God deals with our fear, our wounds, our hardened defenses.

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hen I realize I am beginning to close off, clamp down, harden with fear, it helps me to think of the details of Jesus’ feast for the hungry:

As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. ...Then he ordered them [the disciples] to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. ...Taking the f ive loaves and the two f ish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people. ... And all ate and were f illed.

(Mark 6:34, 39, 41–42, nrsv)

Green grass! Every scriptural detail has signif icance. The Gospel writer must have been thinking of the great psalm of God’s shepherding w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 7

care who makes us lie down in green pastures and who provides a feast even in the presence of our enemies.

I try to f ind some green grass whether in nature, or in a comforting chair, or in my inner heart. I try to give to the Giver whatever bits of bread or f ish may be within me. I try to remember the One who is praying for me even when I have no words of appropriate prayer. I try to breathe slowly and deeply of the breath of the One who prays for me.

As my heart ceases to pound, my tight muscles begin to release. I begin to let the One feed me of the bread of the Presence. New light begins to enter my darkness, new options, hopeful visions.

I saw this enacted at a church business meeting some years ago. It was their custom every half hour to stop talking, to sit for f ive minutes in silence, opening to the Presence. (They took turns holding the stopwatch.) It was miraculous. The tone of the talk and planning changed, attit udes changed, disag reements were handled differently, f resh options were envisioned.

The story of the feast is not only for individual nurture, it is a communal story also. The hungry, hurting, anxious people were guided to sit in groups on the grass. Strangers as well as families were in these groups. Together they saw each other’s need, together they were fed the bread of the Presence, sharing the comfort, the f illing, the healing, the renewal. We need to see each others’ faces and to share our pain and fear.

We need to see each other fed, fed on all levels.

It is not only in the Eucharist that we share the bread of the Presence.

Tomorrow, after the feast, I will be again in my boat, on a risky sea, straining at oars, heading for unknown shores. Tomorrow I will feel the lump of fear hardening in me as I see strange, perhaps menacing things coming at me on the water. Have I understood about the loaves?

If so, I will know that the feast of yesterday has never ended, for it never began. It is forever. If so, I will know who it is who walks towards me on the adverse waves.

Then he got into the boat with them and the wind ceased.

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion How doe s the stor y of the f r ight ene d dog a nd the wom a n who rescued and bathed him speak to you?

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CONFIDENCE :

I Have E very thing I Need

SHR AGA WEIL “Peshat ” serigraph published by Saf rai Galler y

by Jan Johnson

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hat would you say is the most frequent command in Scripture?

“Be good”? “Be holy”? Or, negatively, “Don’t be immoral”? No. The most frequent command in the Bible is: “Don’t be afraid.”

“Fear not.”1 “Don’t be afraid ” f lows like a repetitive melody in the symphony of scripture. God said it to Abraham, Moses, and Joshua; an angel said those words to Mar y and Zechariah; Jesus said those words to the parents of a dead child. Jesus continually told the disciples not to be afraid in such circumstances as the miraculous catch of f ish, the earth’s terrifying elements, people who would beat and persecute them. He even had to tell them not to be afraid of himself, as he walked on water, when they saw him in radiance talking with Moses and Elijah (who were, after all, deceased), and when he appeared in his post-resurrection body (Luke 5:10; Matthew 8:26; 10:26; 14:27; 17:7; 28:10).

The command not to fear is a practical application of a major biblical theme: trusting God. “Don’t be afraid” is one more way for God to say: “Trust me!” We are continually invited to have conf idence in the Holy One. Fear Causes Us to “Miss the Mark”

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ear often causes us to be less than we can be as we lead others astray, hide ourselves, or defend ourselves unnecessarily. For example, people laugh at the story of the little girl in church who, when asked what a lie was, said: “It’s an abomination to God, and a very present help in time of trouble.” As we often do, she felt she needed to lie when there was no other way out or when she feared that telling the truth would make people upset with her. Fear drives much of our waywardness. We don’t move forward to help others because we’re afraid of what might happen. We hold too tightly to possessions and relationships because we’re afraid that tomorrow we won’t have everything we need.

When we’re afraid, we often use anger in unhealthy ways to protect ourselves. In fear, we attempt to manage and control those we love and don’t love, eventually alienating them. Out of fear, we deceive others to get our needs met because we don’t trust God to meet our needs. Fear causes us to hurry, which has been def ined as a “state of frantic effort one falls into in response to inadequacy, fear and guilt.”2 In our hurry, we miss the mark by not really listening to the people in front of us.

Trust doesn’t come naturally. One way we learn to do it is to train

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our mind to go to certain places, especially when we’re afraid. A familiar “place” people have gone for centuries has been Psalm 23, which is a “conf idence psalm.” Unlike thanksgiving psalms composed after being delivered from a crisis, conf idence psalms a re more d i st a n c e d f rom t h e c r i si s a nd re f le c t ive . Th e y s p e a k generically of a relationship with Yahweh that is utterly trustworthy in the face of every threat....The speaker of these poems cannot imagine a situation that would cause doubt or trouble enough to jeopardize the trust. The relationship has been tested severely, and Yahweh has shown himself to be profoundly reliable and powerful.

That is to be celebrated.3

Part of how we can celebrate this trust in God is to form pictures in our mind from the psalm’s words and then hold on to these pictures when drawn toward fear. Here are a few pictures from Psalm 23.

Confidence: I Have Ever ything I Need The L ORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 4

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hile we may not be familiar with sheep or modern shepherding, we can recognize that this implies the sensibility of having an ultimate caretaker. Shepherds manage the food supply by leading sheep where they will f ind adequate pasture instead of leaving them in bare brown f ields. When sheep are aff licted with wounds or diseases, the alert shepherd treats them as a doctor would.

As a protector of sheep, a shepherd defends the sheep from wild dogs, cougars, and rustlers. A shepherd also protects the sheep from the environment by providing shelter from storms and blizzards. Ever protecting, a shepherd monitors f ights among the sheep and protects smaller or wounded ones. When sheep get lost or wander into dangerous places, the shepherd searches for them relentlessly to rescue them, climbing down into crevices or pulling them away from poisonous snakes. Imagining God as shepherd helps us embrace the idea that we truly have nothing to fear because the shepherd is intercepting all kinds of dangers we’re unaware of.

With all this protection, we see why verse one is paraphrased with these audacious words: “I have everything I need.”5 This idea goes against everything advertisers tell us, and so we struggle to believe w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 11

it. But such conf ident words help us face our fears. I repeat “I have everything I need” when running through an airport, roller bag in tow, trying to catch a connecting f light. My experience is that even if I miss the f light, I will somehow have everything I need. A safe place to sleep will make itself known to me. I will be all right.

But I sometimes have to preface this phrase with “maybe” so that I’m panting these words as I dash up the escalator: “Maybe, just maybe the Lord is my shepherd and I have everything I need. Any minute now.”

The idea that I have everything I need is so radical I have to lean halfway into it to believe it.

Confident and Satisfied He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul.

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hese familiar words paint somewhat illogical pictures. Normally sheep don’t lie down in green pastures but stand up on all four feet, eating. It may have taken all day to walk to that green pasture and the sheep is hungry. The psalmist’s radically different picture of a sheep lying down works only if the sheep is fully satisf ied and no longer hungry. It can rest contentedly only when it trusts the shepherd to fend off wolves or coyotes. Sometimes when I lie down to sleep, I see myself as this satisf ied sheep, able to rest peacefully because the shepherd has led me and fed me.

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The next phrase is similar: The sheep isn’t going down to the water to drink, but is led “beside” still waters. There’s no need to lap water because there’s no thirst (compare Ps 42:1). This sheep is perfectly satisf ied. The soul is restored.

Confident on the Right Path He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

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icture yourself hiking a mountain trail. Even though you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not worried because you’re following someone who knows the way. You trust the leader so much that you don’t have to try to look around him to see what’s up ahead. You’re content to take one step at a time following a leader who knows the way even though you don’t have a clue.

What’s more, you know you’re conf ident that you’re walking the best possible paths (of righteousness). Nowadays the word righteousness makes people think self-righteou sness, that is, seeming to know everything and eager to tell you where you’re wrong. But righteousness (dikaiosune) in Scripture is “true inner goodness....It represents a combination of skill, wisdom, power, and steadfastness for good that makes it very attractive.”6 Think of a g randmother who is deeply good but also delightfully pleasant and kind. Such a good, true, and beautiful person lives life with full conf idence in God. Consequently, righteous paths are not boring or oppressive but deep and attractive “ways of being” that you’ve always wanted.

Confident in Dark Valleys Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

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he above wording, “the darkest valley” f its because “the Hebrew word used contains no reference to death as such but does refer to all dark and bitter experiences.”7 This would include surprises and all kinds of disasters, anything that threatens us or creates dread and fear. Such valleys are also f illed with physical or emotional pain, diseases, depression, grief, rejection, failure, abuse, or endless toil. w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 13

Through appears in all translations. No matter what the dangers, the psalmist gets through them to the other side. How does this happen?

Because “Thou art with me,”8 which is the center space of the psalm. I can truly believe I have everything I need because “thou art with me.”

God’s presence means there is no space for fear, only for conf idence.

The rod may not sound like a good thing, but it is comforting because it is primarily an instrument of protection. The skilled shepherd “uses the rod to drive off predators like coyotes, wolves, cougars or stray dogs. Often it is used to beat the brush, discouraging snakes and other creatures from disturbing the f lock.”9 The staff is a long slender stick often with a hook on one end used mainly to guide sheep where they need to go: pulling a lamb to its mother, guiding sheep away from dangerous drop-offs. The shepherd also uses the staff to rescue sheep by doing such things as pulling them out of ravines or freeing them from being entangled in brambles or thorns. The Message communicates this: “Your trusty shepherd’s crook makes me feel secure.”

Confidence with Difficult People You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overf lows.

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typically illustrate this picture by having someone sit in a chair in front of me, facing away from me. Let’s say it is you. Imagine a table in front of you and an “enemy” (anyone you f ind diff icult today) sitting across from you. As you sit there, I come behind you and rest my hands on your head. Close your eyes and try to feel those hands.

Then I begin moving my hands down and resting them on your shoulders as if I were releasing oil on your head— anointing you, as God does in the psalm. So as you sit across the table from that diff icult person, you feel secure because you are anointed by God. The diff icult person sees that you are special, set aside, anointed by God in some way.

You have everything you need (v. 1).

But you may still feel anxious across from the “enemy,” so God— again from behind—reaches over you and keeps f illing up the cup of water. One’s throat is often dry when afraid, but God can provide everything you need in these tense moments.

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Dwelling in Confidence Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the L ORD my whole life long.

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he last picture is one of everyday life with the steady companionship of God that results in a life that f lows with blessing for others.

By dwelling in God’s space, we f ind goodness and mercy following us. Think of how it is when some people leave a room. They leave behind an atmosphere of peace, joy and love while others leave behind a trail of turmoil, conf lict, frustration, and animosity. People who trust that God is their shepherd and who trust that God provides everything they need leave a trail that’s deeply good and merciful (helping others and forgiving mistakes). The room is an easier place to be in when they have been there.

This is the sort of life we’ve always wanted. It’s the one God invites us into. Perhaps you feel that you could never have such a life. What often helps me is to rest in these ideas ten minutes at a time: I have ever y thing I need— for the next ten minutes I’m OK, m aybe even satisf ied. Then after ten minutes, we can re-up for ten more. We can let God ease us into trust. Conf idence slowly grows and becomes a place to dwell, a way of life.

En dnot es

1 N. T. Wright, Following Jesus (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1994), 66.

2 D allas Willard, Spirituality and Ministry, class at Fuller Theological Seminary, June 2006.

3 Walter Brueggeman, The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1984), 152, italics mine.

4 P salm 23 references are from the New Revised Standard Version.

5 Ps 23:1, Living New Testament.

6 Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), 145, describing dikaiosune, which is how the Hebrew word tseh’-dek (Ps. 23:3) is normally translated into Greek.

7 H . C. Leupold, E xposition of the Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1969), 212.

8 King James Version.

9 Phillip Keller, A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23, Large Print Edition (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1970), 97.

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion How does the audacious paraphrase of Psalm 23:1, “I have everything I need,” speak to you about an area of life in which you are not confident?

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eath is the ultimate desert. It requires us to leave everything behind: our possessions, our loved ones, our physicality, and our sense of being. It requires us to face our deepest fears. It is frightening yet alluring, for it promises paradise, a more abundant life, and the ultimate and most complete union with God. It is a journey we can only take alone. It requires us to walk with courage, strengthened by faith and beckoned by a loving God. I’ve had a strange relationship with death all my life. In truth, I have never lost those whom I fear losing most: a parent, a brother, a husband, a child. More than my own death, I fear the loss of those I love.

An experience I had in prayer f ifteen years ago unearthed and solidif ied this fear. At a f ive-day silent retreat, I had an experience of the presence of God that has both scared and strengthened me spiritually ever since. I was praying for union with God when suddenly, as I felt my entire body relax, I was immediately aware of God’s presence. I felt utterly loved, protected, and safe. I understood in that instant that God

The Desert

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had been with me all my life. In a life review, I saw God’s loving presence at each stage of my life, even during the most diff icult times, the times when I had felt most alone. In that moment, nothing else mattered, nothing else seemed of any importance but remaining in union with God. I felt deeply loved and utterly certain of what life was about. I felt great compassion and oneness with all of humanity. I kept repeating to myself “if people only knew.”

Suddenly, as I began praying for my loved ones, I saw my life in the future. I had a husband, children and a lot of joy. Then, I experienced my worst fear, my husband and children died. I was startled out of my feelings of peace and instead felt such profound sadness. I did not want such a future. The rest of the retreat I was left feeling scared and confused.

I wondered, how could such a beautiful experience of God’s love be mixed with such deep fear and anxiety? The effects of the experience have stayed with me ever since. The experience uncovered my unconscious fear that loving God hurts, loving God means loss and death.

in My Life

b y E l s y A r é va l o

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I didn’t realize it then, but I have sought to understand death all my life—as if by uncovering its mysteries and seeing its relationship to God, I would lessen its sting. I have been trying to reconcile my different images of God, particularly as they relate to suffering. I see that God has even used my fears and questions to draw me closer to God’s own being. The fear of death, loss, and the suffering that comes with it, is my personal desert. I began to understand the roots of my fear of death very recently. Actually, it was not until I began to write this article that I saw the connection between my life growing up in El Salvador and my fear of loss and the way this fear affects my prayer, dreams, and even my hopes for the future.

At f irst, I was very surprised to notice that the f irst memories that came to my mind while ref lecting on my life growing up were those of death and violence, though it makes perfect sense. I grew up in the middle of a civil war. The sound of bombs and machine guns were not an uncommon occurrence. Although they did not happen all the time, they happened often enough that I knew even as a young child which wall in our house was thickest in case we needed to protect ourselves from any f lying bullets.

I grew up in walking distance from Universidad Centroamericana (UCA), the Jesuit University in San Salvador. My mother received her psychology degree from that school. She was taught by and had great respect for the Jesuits who would later be murdered there. I went to a wonderful school growing up where the sense of God was present in its reverence for silence, order, prayer, and care for others. It was a contemplative educational experience. The peace I felt there was disrupted one morning when, while being dropped off at school by my dad, we noticed that outside the main entrance my friend’s father had been shot in the head seconds after dropping off his daughters. While his body was still bleeding in the car, we were rushed inside the school. Both his girls were ushered inside too, still crying, still shocked. I More than remember not much being said afterwards. Classes simply continued. my own Something interesting happens when you grow death, up in an environment like this. When you don’t know I fear th at life c a n be a ny other way, sen seless de ath i s the loss normalized. Your internal defense mechanisms kick in. The society as a whole stops being shocked and of those continues living their “normal lives.” Stories like this I love were not uncommon. Death, poverty, and suffering 18 w e av i n g s | x x v i i: 3

were everywhere, yet my family was somehow always spared. The threat of death, though, was always looming in my unconscious. While in the midst of this chaos, I enjoyed an otherwise loving and joy-f illed upbringing.

It is no wonder that I have always been trying to understand, perhaps even tame my fear of death and loss. The theme is pretty consistent.

Throughout my life I have volunteered with or phan children, the elderly, terminally ill patients and their families, and most recently, with bereaved families at my local parish. I feel drawn to chaplaincy work in the area of healing. It is almost laughable that I have never seen this recurring threat/thread in my own life. Spiritually I am asking: Where is God in suffering? Where is God in times of loss? What is God’s relationship to death?

These questions f ind a voice in my interiority. I have a recurrent dream of standing in front of the ocean, when suddenly I see the waves building strength and rising up. I know something big is coming; I brace myself. Sometimes, I just stand there watching, sensing the fear wash over me, knowing that change is coming. One time I was able to walk on water, knowing and trusting that there was something strong underneath me holding me up. Another time I was able to see, from the safety of an underground house, what was underneath the water. What I saw surprised me. What I initially took to be a scary creature turned out to be a pair of loving eyes looking back at me. Most recently, I saw the waves rising up again, but this time I chose to go under the waves. I saw myself coming out safely as a transformed new being. I see this series of dreams as a call to the inner world, a call to contemplation, a call to f ind God even in those things I fear most. It is a call to trust that in the end, what I will f ind if I choose to face my life with trust and courage, is either God holding me up, God’s loving gaze, or my own transformation into a more powerful being.

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he theme of death and suffering is asking something of me I do not yet fully understand. What I do know is that it is urging me to grow, inviting me to come to know God more deeply, and drawing me into the desert. The desert in this sense is serving for me as a source of both temptation and grace. It is pushing me to confront the demons of fear, doubt, and hopelessness. It is inviting me to leave everything behind, not in a literal sense, but metaphorically as the way in which I can come to engage in a trusting relationship with God. Can I trust w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 19

enough to give God my loved ones? Can I trust enough to dive into life and into myself ? Can I trust enough to give God my self completely and open up to transformation?

I listen to this call as I discern another series of recurrent dreams.

After helping at a funeral service, I dreamt of an ominous spirit trying to enter my body. My response to the feeling of fear and dread was to try to protect myself by uttering a prayer over and over. I woke up a couple of times feeling anxious. This fearful feeling loomed around me into the next day. In a more recent related dream, I saw my spiritual director Sr. Peg Dolan. She was an important inf luence in my life and my spiritual director for many years up until she passed away two years ago. In my dream I saw her, went to her, and with great urgency, I asked her my “spiritual question.” She looked at me and smiled. Her spirit entered my body, but this time there was no fear or resistance on my part. I was able to feel her thoughts and communicate with her. She was caring, reassuring towards me, and pleased by my earnest desire to know God. She smiled at me lovingly and told me to rest. That time I felt peaceful.

It has taken me a long time to get an internal “click” on the meaning of this series of dreams. Finally, I remembered St. Ignatius’ rules of discernment of spirits and specif ically, rule number seven in which he says that those things that come from God feel like water entering a soft sponge. The grace is absorbed gently and without resistance.

On the contrary, the evil spirit causes disturbing thoughts like water hitting a rock, scattering in all directions. The ominous spirit in my dreams represents my fears of death, the dead, and loss. Its fruits are anxiety and dread. My body rejects this spirit. In contrast, my director’s spirit represents love, goodness, and trust in God’s graciousness and is received in me like a healing balm. I am reminded of 1 John 4:18, “love casts out fear,” and I hear once again the invitation to let God’s love in.

Upon ref lection, I begin to understand the temptations of the desert, the devils we f ind along the way, and the call to discern, through contemplation, guidance and prayer, the voice of God in our hearts.

The desert is an invitation to listen to our own interiority and come to absorb in our hearts the God whose goodness uses all that we are, even our fears, to draw us closer to him. And Jesus said, don’t be afraid.

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion What is your personal desert, your deepest fear, and how are you being called to transformation?

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Epektasis:

Antidote to Fear of Change

A lessandra K elley

by E. Glenn Hinson

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hange is frightening. Fear of it can immobilize both individuals and societies. The ancient Greeks viewed change in a wholly negative way. According even to the brilliant Athenian Plato, change leads backward and downward toward nothingness; we ought to avoid it at all costs.

The resurrection of Jesus imbued Christianity with a very different attitude toward change. Life is constantly changing, not winding downward or backward but pulled ever upward and forward toward what the Apostle Paul designated “the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14, at). Paul depicted the Christian approach to the f low and f lux in the imagery of a runner in an Olympic race “forgetting things behind and stretching forward toward those ahead” (3:13) so as to attain the prize. Note please, there are two motions in that, both important: Forget things behind. Stretch forth toward those ahead. w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 21

Forgetting “Things Behind”

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hat did Paul mean when he talked about “forgetting things behind”? Surely he did not mean to forget everything. Much as we might wish, we can’t just wipe the slate clean and begin with a tabula rasa. God made us with a capacity to remember and not with a capacity to forget, so we have to remember to identify and to forget “things behind,” experiences that keep us from moving forward and upward. For Paul, as he told his beloved friends at Philippi, “things behind” included his rabbinic credentials—“circumcised on the eighth day, from the race of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew from Hebrews, according to Law a Pharisee” (3:5)—his zeal as a persecutor of the Church, and his blameless character by judgment of the Law (3:6).

If we follow the Apostle’s example here, this might entail remembering to forget some positive as well as some negative things, for both of them can tie us down to the past and prevent us from moving ever forward and upward toward One always beyond our reach. In the religious sphere as in other areas, as life gets more complex and more demanding, we humans do have a tendency to let memory keep slipping back and thence mire down in “great moments” in the past. We do want to remember.

Our faith insists that we remember. Remembering is crucial to growing in grace. But we want to remember in ways that keep us heading toward God. And some kinds of remembering of “things behind” actually throw obstacles into the path God constantly blazes ahead of us.

As I zip past my eightieth birthday, I have been praying that I would not fall into a pattern wherein I would repeat certain stories over and over, at least not to the same people. One of my keenest memories from early childhood concerns the rehashing of stories by a group of men who gathered on the porch of G. C. Busch’s country store at Spring Bluff, Missouri, every time it rained and they couldn’t work in the fields. The first time one of the old sodbusters told a story, usually about fishing or hunting or horse pulling contests or occasionally about girls, it captured my attention. Some of those old or not-so-old farmers could really spin a yarn. Others laughed uproariously and stomped their feet on the rough boards of the porch. They could hardly wait to add their story. The second time, repeated word for word, the tale lost some of its attraction. I noted that others didn’t join in like they had the first time. The third time, I wanted to hurry the telling and give the punch line. Paul says to count those “things behind.”

For most of us “things behind” will consist of negatives, like Paul’s excess of zeal for his faith that led him to try to stamp out this threat 22 w e av i n g s | x x v i i: 3

Life is constantly changing, not

from the Jesus movement. As you can well imagine, early Christians remained highly suspicious of Paul’s past. They feared him (Acts 9:26). What he winding downward had done could have neutralized him completely or backward but and demolished any thought in his own mind of a mission for the new sect he had persecuted. It pulled ever didn’t because he remembered to place what he upward had done among “things behind” to the lasting and forward benef it of Christianity.

What is it you need to remember to list among “things behind”? Pitiful performance on an exam crucial to achieving distinction in your college degree? A broken friendship or shattered marriage and grief attendant on that? A church fracas that wounded you and left the congregation in disarray and distress? Failure to reach an important milestone in your career as measured by yourself or others? A health problem that dashed across your path like a rockslide, crushing your hopes? A coveted position tailor-made for you that went to some other deserving or not-sodeserving person? Some sad happening you hardly know how to put into words? Paul would say to count these among “things behind.”

Stretching For th

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ne lesson I believe life teaches, however, is that it’s virtually impossible to remember to forget, to discern and put “things behind,” until a more urgent reality captures our attention and a more powerful force pulls us forward. Preoccupation with “How am I doing?” will diminish our energies. Going upward and forward, therefore, requires us to “stretch forward” toward the goal, not diverted by what lies behind. Thankfully, it doesn’t depend entirely on us with our human limitations and energies. Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330–c. 395), the third child in the remarkable Cappadocian family of the fourth century to whom Byzantine Christianity owed its basic shape, turned Paul’s present active participle, “stretching forward,” into the active noun epektasis and made it the centerpiece of his spirituality.

In a brilliant exposition of this verse, Gregory f ingers a heightened sense of self-possession in the possession of God within one’s soul and within the sense of oneself undergoing transformation into God transcendent. In his classic on Christian perfection sketched out on analogy to The Life of Moses, he wrote, w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 23

If nothing comes from above to hinder its upward thrust (for the nature of the Good attracts to itself those who look to it), the soul rises ever higher and will always make its f light yet higher — by its desire of the heavenly things straining ahead for what is still to come, as the Apostle says.

Made to desire and not to abandon the transcendent heights by the things already attained, it makes its way upward without ceasing, ever through its prior accomplishments renewing its intensity for the f light. Activity directed toward virtue causes its capacity to grow through exertion; this kind of activity alone does not slacken its intensity by the effort, but increases it.1

Gregory must have talked to joggers and runners. I have heard many of them speak about the way the running itself pumped them up. Early in a long-distance run, energies seem to drain away. But when they reach a certain critical point, their bodies experience a surge of new energy, and they again pick up and accelerate the pace, magnetically pulled toward the goal. We should expect even more of such revitalization in the most important race in life we will ever run; for God, the Holy Spirit, pours the new energy into us. Gregory seems himself to have experienced what he described.2 What the Apostle Paul and St. Gregory envisioned here rests on an assumption of God’s intimate penetration through every facet of creation.

No doubt it will cause the lifting of some eyebrows and the scratching of some heads for those who know only one side of this tradition, but Belden Lane has pointed precisely to that kind of intimacy in Reformed spirituality as defined by John Calvin, the Puritans, and Jonathan Edwards, which coalesces remarkably with Gregory’s. To the surprise of many, both within and outside that tradition, they posited a dynamic desire within the Trinity for an intimacy that suffused itself throughout the whole creation.

Lane observes, “The Genevan Reformer’s sense of God’s The soul’s desire intimate relation to the natural world was so intense— he perceived God’s radiant glory to pervade the world is fulfilled at so completely—that his thought bordered at times on each moment pantheism.”3 God, as it were, donned the clothing of by its nature’s beauty so as to awaken desire and bring all creation back to Godself in ravishing delight. Jonathan participation Edwards, “a naturalist as well as a theologian,”4 looked in God on the world as alive with the presence of God, and he 24 w e av i n g s | x x v i i: 3

believed that the whole creation celebrated God’s beauty. The human challenge is to awaken the world to a consciousness of its beauty in God. Gregory’s picture looks amazingly like the one Teilhard de Chardin painted in The Phenomenon of Man and The Divine Milieu. Evolution does not depend, as it were, on a “push from below,” from the level of matter.

Within matter is consciousness, but minimal consciousness cannot explain how this process moves upwards and for wards toward the ultimate in consciousness, the Hyper-Personal, as it does. Rather, we have to posit a “pull from above,” from what Teilhard calls “the Omega Point.”

Love is energy, energy suffused throughout the universe. God, Divine Love, f ills all things and thus energizes the whole creation to soar upwards toward God’s own self.5 “God, in all that is most living and incarnate in him,” he insisted in The Divine Milieu, “is not far away from us, altogether apart from the world we see, touch, hear, smell and taste about us. Rather [God] awaits us every instant in our action, in the work of the moment.”6 Since evolution is Christogenesis, “evolution toward Christ,” the Christian’s task is “to divinize the world in Jesus Christ.”7 Never Satisfied, Yet Stretching For ward

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regory’s idea of continuing unsatisf ied desire raises the question as to whether believers can ever experience satisfaction. Won’t they become discouraged and throw up their hands in despair?

Biblical writers and theologians have debated for centuries whether mortals could “know” God. The Book of Exodus hoists a caution f lag.

On one hand, he reported, “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (33:11, nrsv). Yet when Moses entreated, “Show me your glory, I pray” (33:18, nrsv), God assuring him of grace and mercy, added, “But you cannot see my face; for no one shall see me and live” (33:20, nrsv). Experiencing God face to face would be like plugging a 120-volt appliance into a 220-volt socket. Gregory’s answer to this dilemma is “that the true satisfaction of [the soul’s] desire consists in constantly going on with her quest and never ceasing in her ascent, seeing that every f ulf illment of her desire continually generates a further desire for the Transcendent.”8 The soul’s desire is fulf illed at each moment by its participation in God, which causes it constantly to grow. Spiritual nourishment increases the capacity of the soul for God. “Thus, in a certain sense, it is constantly being created, ever changing for the better in its growth w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 25

in perfection; along these lines no limit can be envisaged, nor can its progressive growth in perfection be limited in any term.”9 At every stage in the soul’s journey it experiences a new beginning.

This idea of perpetual creation brings Gregory’s thought into line with the biblical perspective. The first creation brought the world into being; the new creation effects Resurrection— of Christ as the first fruits and then those in Christ. Because there is ever a new beginning, there is no satiety, for we constantly long for the new. The longing is what matters.

The soul that looks up towards God, and conceives that good desire for [God’s] eternal beauty, constantly experiences an ever-new yearning for that which lies ahead, and her desire is never given its full satisfaction. Hence she never ceases to stretch herself forth to those things that are before (Phil 3:13), ever leaving the stage in which she is to enter ever more deeply into the interior, into the stage which lies ahead.10 St. Augustine embodied a similar thought in his oft-quoted prayer at the beginning of the Confessions: “You arouse [us] to take joy in praising you, for you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”11 En dnot es 1 Gregory of Nyssa: The Life of Moses, 225-226; Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1978), 113.

2 Elmer O’Brien, SJ, Varieties of Mystic E xperience (New York: Mentor-Omega, 1964), 46.

3 Belden Lane, Ravished by Beauty: The Surprising Legacy of Reformed Spirituality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 53.

4 Ibid. 135.

5 In a memorandum he dispatched to a conference in New York City that he could not attend in December 1940, Teilhard wrote: “The sense of the Earth, as it unfolds and bursts upward in the direction of God; and the sense of God as He thrusts his roots downward in the direction of Earth, and nourishes himself from below: God, the transcendent personal, and the universe in evolution together forming no longer two antagonistic centres of attraction, but entering into a hierarchical union to raise up the human mass on the crest of a single tide. Such is the astounding transformation which the idea of a spiritual evolution of the universe entitles us to expect in logic, and which is beginning in fact to operate in an increasing number of minds, free-thinkers as much as believers.” Letters from a Traveller, 1923-1955 (London: Collins; New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 221-2.

6 Teilhard de Chardin, Le Milieu Divin: An Essay on the Interior Life (London: Collins, 1960), 64.

7 Ibid. 72.

8 Gregory, Commentary on the Song of Songs; in From Glory to Glory (Hellenic College Press, 1987), 62.

9 Gregory, Commentary on the Song of Songs; in From Glory to Glory, 65.

10 Gregory, Commentary on the Song of Songs; in From Glory to Glory, 70.

11 Augustine, Confessions 1.1; in The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by John K. Ryan (Garden City, NY: Doubleday Image Books,1960), 43.

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion The author posits that sometimes we are called to remember “to forget some positive as well as some negative things, for both of them can tie us down to the past and prevent us from moving ever forward and upward.” What are some positive “things behind” that you need to let go of, in order to move forward?

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Holding on Through

Waves of Fear

NEL SON K A NE

by Anne Marie Dre w

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any things scared me as I anticipated my trip to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Iguanas, detainees, barbed wire. Drowning, however, was not on my list of fears. Yet there I was on a July afternoon, in a Coast Guard Fast Boat, zipping across the Bay. The driver, who prided himself on speed, raced across the rough water at some 40 mph. The water was choppy. The waves were high. The wind, fierce.

One doesn’t sit in such a boat. One stands, holding onto a rail. Thus, as the boat smacked against the water, each impact dislodged the soles of my feet from the bottom of the boat. With every slam against the water, I bounced and had to rely on arm muscles to steady my body.

“Bend your knees and ride the balls of your feet,” a naval off icer yelled to me, over the noise. w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 27

Every lurch, every bounce weakened my hold on the rail. I looked over the side of the boat, gauging a potential jump. Letting go seemed inevitable because I lacked the strength to hold on.

Physical terror seized me. I prayed and prayed. Finally, in desperation, when the waves did not stop and my body lurched again and again, I clenched my teeth, tightened my grip, and told myself: “You will stay in this boat.”

And I did.

A friend took my picture when the ride was done. In the picture, I look like a great adventurer, with sunglasses and a big smile. Triumphant.

Proud of myself, looking as if I had conquered fear all by myself.

I was not, however, all by myself in that boat.

The week before I’d left for Cuba, my contemplative prayer group met, and oddly enough, used Luke 8:22–25 as our lectio divina passage: The Calming of the Tempest. As our small group prayed about this passage, we sat in a lovely and elegant Annapolis home. Flickering candles lined the window sills. We were safe and I pray daily peaceful and felt the presence of the Spirit. When it to transform came my turn to respond to the passage, I said, “I don’t get the big deal. These guys are f ishermen. They my fears, know the seas. How bad could it have been? Why did they have to wake up Jesus?” to learn You must believe me when I tell you that my very from them words came back to haunt me on that July afternoon, when it was not the disciples, but me, in a boat on choppy seas. As I held on for dear life, my mind f lashed back to the calm, Annapolis living room. And I remembered my callous incredulity at the disciples’ fear. I also remember that my friend Sue said, “But look what the disciples did,” she offered, “they went straight to the Lord. He calmed their fears.”

And so one of my prayers that day was bargain basement simple: “Jesus, I know you’re right here with me. Keep me in this boat.” Not a profound prayer, nor an especially contemplative one, but the prayer sprung from the wisdom of my prayer group. I felt accompanied in that boat, not only by Jesus Christ, but also by my friends.

Prayer and faithf ul companions have taught me that when fear strikes, I need to hold on but not close down. Whenever I get afraid, I want to erect a protective shield until the danger passes. A loving God and loving friends call for a more open and loving response. And because 28 w e av i n g s | x x v i i: 3

fear is neither linear nor f inite, I’ve learned that I am continually called upon to stay open, to stay focused on Jesus Christ, not self.

Sometimes I can manage to respond with wisdom and discernment, when fear overwhelms me. Sometimes, I can only sputter mindless prayers. Then I’ll circle back again. I may have triumphed on the Guantanamo boat ride; however, I will never conquer fear, once and for all.

Rather I keep learning to strengthen my awareness that deeper than my worst fear breathes Jesus Christ. Consequently, when fear seizes me, I am less likely to be thrown off balance or f layed alive. I can acknowledge and weather the feeling, almost as if it were a passing thunderstorm, and breathe into the reality of Jesus’ presence.

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ike the devil who tempts Jesus in the desert, fear departs only to await “an opportune time” (Luke 4:13, nrsv). God knows all about the perennial nature of fear. The word fear and its variations appear hundreds of times in the Bible. Every December, we are reminded that the Christmas angel tells the shepherds: “Be not afraid.” But I so wish that angel had said, “I understand why you’re afraid, but come with me. I’ll bring you to someone who will help you handle the fear.”

For, no matter what that angel tells the shepherds or us, we are going to be afraid in life. It’s that simple. There are strategies to deal with fear, to learn what it’s trying to tell us, to transform it into good, but fear abides. When John tells us, “Perfect love casts out fear,” (1 John 4:18, nrsv) he’s not suggesting that we will never again be afraid. He points us in a direction, giving our spirits a goal. The perfect love that casts out fear is Jesus Christ. As we grow in love of him, being transformed into his likeness, fear will lose some of its hold. Still, we fear. And we prayerfully inhabit those fears as best we can.

Absent prayer, fear induces spirit-strangling myopia. So stunned by the unfaithful spouse or the ungrateful child, we hunker down and wrap ourselves in a protective shell. So unsettled by job loss or medical diagnosis, we can’t see beyond our own suffering.

However, even at such times, especially at such times, we need to stay open to the movement of the Spirit, ever mindful of our place in the Communion of Saints. The awareness simultaneously draws us closer to each other and to the heart of God. Such awareness may not alleviate fear but we can know we are not alone in our pain. When word comes that our deployed spouse is MIA; when a tornado rips apart our home; when we are trapped in the wreckage of an auto accident waiting for help—the w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 29

turning to Christ creates a space for the work of the Spirit. We are, all of us, on this journey together. Staying mindful of our connections to others may prevent hardening of our hearts. As we are afraid, we can pray for ourselves and all those who fear and mourn and weep.

While tornadoes and accidents do indeed catapult us into fear, I believe the deepest, quietest fear is not a dramatic one. Many of us have survived natural disasters and medical crises and the death of loved ones. Our greatest fear transcends these temporal events. Our greatest fear, my greatest fear, is that we are of no signif icance. Whether we call it fear or anxiety or dread, we fear our own annihilation. We fear that our coming and going will matter not a jot. Even as we know we’ve been “bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 7:23, nrsv), even as we know we “are of more value than many sparrows” (Luke 12:7, nrsv), in the still of the night we worry that we do not really matter. We fear that we will have come and gone from the face of the earth and like the handful of ashes that we are, our lives will have amounted to nothing. As a young mother, swamped with diapers and dressed in clothes stained with applesauce and pureed peas, I felt invisible, even as I adored my sons and daughter.

Similarly, I cherish my current life as a professor, but sometimes stare at a classroom full of students thinking, “I could drop dead right now and it would not change their lives one bit.” Well into the second half of my life, I am afraid of outliving my usefulness.

I pray daily to transform my fears, to learn from them.

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“ You are pure Such prayer does not repress or deny the light. When emot ion, rather the pray i ng it self c re ate s room for God to work through me. Clinging you get afraid, tightly to a boat rail may prevent drowning, but m aint aining a t ight g r ip for too long remember me. hardens us—against ourselves, against others.

And our battered world, our battered selves I am right here.” need something better as we struggle with the seeming void.

If we keep our Spirits open, in the perceived void, we will recognize Jesus Christ as he strides through the Temple and the locked doors.

We will recognize him when he walks across the pasture, the reassuring Shepherd, swooping us up like lost sheep. We will listen as he says what the Christmas angel might have said: “Stay close to me. You will be afraid. You will be scared. You might feel diminished and insignif icant.

You are none of those things. Your Spirit is part of mine. You are pure light. When you get afraid, remember me. I am right here.”

Staying close to Jesus is key. The disciples in the tempest-tossed boat stayed near Jesus, as did hundreds of other New Testament characters, who are also companions for our journey. I think of Joanna, the wife of Herod’s steward, whom I have noticed for the first time. There she is in Luke’s Gospel.

I wonder why I’ve missed paying attention to her all these years. Joanna has much to teach me. We are told she is one of the women who accompanied Jesus, having “been cured of evil spirits and infirmities” (8:2, nrsv). Imagine the fear she faced. Her husband worked for Herod, yet she followed Jesus. She must have endured the scorn of many people, perhaps even her husband. But she stayed near the Lord, close to love and compassion. She surely learned how to hold tight without closing down. And there she is, a quiet witness in Luke’s Gospel, radiating fear-conquering love.

Because we are mortal, we will be afraid. Because we bear the light of Christ within us, we can transform our fear into an opportunity to bring love to ourselves and others. When our palms get sweaty and our respirations quicken and our heart races; when dread envelops us and terror strikes, we can, we can take a deep breath and turn to Jesus. By creating a space for Jesus to work in us and through us, we can learn to hold on but not close down—no matter how choppy the waters.

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion When the waves get choppy, what helps you to “hold on but not close down”? w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 31

Faith’s Bitter Foe

Urar tian shield. Photo by Evgeny Genkin

by Philip Huber

I

[ G e n es i s 15:1– 6 ]

am a fearful person. Not in the sense of phobic, though I am a bit wary of heights. This is fear as anxiety. I worry. I worry that my bills will outlast my paycheck, that my children will be enticed down the broad path, that the unfamiliar tightness in my abdomen could be more than just a curiosity, that my wife seems irritated with me. I worry that I’ve squandered opportunities, that I’ve missed God ’s blessing, that I’m wasting my life. In fact, I worry about most anything that appears to threaten my securit y or wellbeing. I worry like Abraham. Despite his credential as “the man of faith” (Galatians 3:9, niv) and his leading role in the cast of characters who

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model faith in Hebrews 11, Abraham is not immune from the struggle between faith and fear. He wrestles with anxiety.

THE BAT TLE BET WEEN FAITH AND FE AR ear is stalking Abraham at every turn. When he’s told to leave Haran (Gen. 12:1), it’s fear that would hold him back; he is stepping into the unknown and leaving behind the safety and security of life as he knew it. When he arrives in the land and f inds it occupied (12:6), we can imagine fear raising questions of whether this major uprooting has been in vain. When he travels to Egypt (12:10-13), fear looks over his shoulder, and capitalizes on a vulnerable moment. He fears for his life and lies about his wife’s identity. When he ref lects on his wife’s barrenness (Gen. 15:2), he fears that his inheritance will go to his servant Eliezer of Damascus. The subtle outline of fear is recognizable in each scene.

But when God chooses to address this issue of fear, it comes, curiously enough, on the heels of Abraham’s most courageous display, rescuing his nephew Lot from four powerful kings (Genesis 14). It appears that Abraham has courage in spades. But in the very next scene the word of the Lord comes to Abraham in a vision saying, “Do not be afraid!” (Genesis 15:1). It seems God’s timing is off. Has God so quickly forgotten Abraham’s bravery? Or is the context of bravery part of the point being made, a subtle hint that what God has in mind is not the crisis fear of Genesis 14? It’s another breed of fear that still affects Abraham, Lot’s daring deliverer. It’s the same fear that grips my heart: anxiety.

The Hebrew verb used by God to tell Abraham not to be afraid is used frequently, according to one Hebrew dictionary, to express “the terror associated with some of the common circumstances of everyday life.”1 The emphasis on common circumstances is helpful, but terror is too strong a description in many uses of the word. For example, when Elihu hesitates to speak to Job before those who are older (Job 32:6), it’s not because he’s terrif ied, but because he is anxious–not wanting to give the impression of impudence. Or when Lot was afraid to live in Zoar after Sodom and Gomorrah had been destroyed (Gen. 19:30), it was less about terror and more about general uneasiness. Frequently our day-today experiences present us with this low-grade fear.

Crisis fears strike with fury, but they usually don’t last long. These are the thunderstorms that roar through our lives on occasion. Day-today fears strike with less intensity but with greater resilience. These are

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the dreary rain showers that, during some seasons, never seem to end.

This slow, steady stream is erosive and destructive, albeit gradual. And while Abraham can handle the torrent, he continues to struggle with the steady stream. In my own life, this gradual decay almost destroyed my marriage. My aversion to conf lict allowed problems to remain unaddressed. Mounting resentment led to bitterness and emotional detachment. Our union was eroding one thin layer at a time over the span of years. Healing began only after we realized the power that fear was exerting in our relationship. This fear had to be laid to rest.

Fear for security and fear for prosperity hese day-to-day fears spring from one of two branches: fear for my security and fear for my prosperity. Will I be safe? Will I be well off ?

In the f irst, the focus is on avoiding dangers and is rooted in my aversion to problems. In the second, the focus is on experiencing blessing because of how desperately I want good fortune.

These two broad categories account for the substance of Abraham’s fears: his fear of not having an heir makes him feel both insecure and insignif icant. And Abraham is not alone in these fears. I deal with them, day in and day out. Will I be safe? Will I be satisf ied? I want problems to be held at bay and good fortune to be showered on me. If either of those is threatened, fear grips my heart—anxiety chokes out peace.

When Abraham is faced with these fears, God tells him not to be afraid, and encourages him with two promises that speak to those two branches of security and prosperity.

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FE AR FOR MY SECURIT Y

In the f irst God addresses Abraham’s fear for his own securit y by assuring him of protection. He offers Abraham security in these words: “I am your shield” (Genesis 15:1, nrsv).

The shield was the key defensive weapon of the Old Testament warrior. It was a portable fortress, a defensive wall that could be taken with the warrior into battle. It provided a barrier between the vulnerable f lesh of the warrior and the dangerous impact of various weaponry.

It’s a recurring image, particularly in the Psalms, of God’s protection.

It’s a promise not only to Abraham. “He is a shield for all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 18:30, nrsv).

God doesn’t pooh-pooh my fears or ridicule my pettiness. God comes upon me busy at work constructing a shield. I want to feel safe.

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I’m working with the materials I have at my disposal, the things of this world that people typically turn to for security— comprehensive insurance policies, robust 401K plans, a secure job, a steady income, a house in the suburbs, smoke detectors in my kitchen and hallway, airbags in both vehicles. In reality, it amounts to nothing more than tinker toys and construction paper. God watches as I meticulously craft my f limsy defense. It may not be much, but it makes me feel safer; the things of this world used to ease my anxieties. And after observing for a time God says, “Oh Phil, you don’t need that. Just sit in the palm of my hand.” In this, a shield of inconceivable strength shrouds me. The attacks still come, but there is security within them.

FE AR FOR MY PROSPERIT Y

But Abraham not only wants the peace of security; he also wants the joy of prosperity. Beyond survival he wants to thrive and to experience a life of blessing and satisfaction. God f ills that desire for joy and satisfaction by making this offer to Abraham: “I am your shield, and your very great reward” (Genesis 15:1, niv).

And while this reward is available freely and abundantly to all, it is often neglected for substitute rewards that glitter and shine, but tarnish easily. We get caught up in a delusion of our own making, convincing ourselves of the value of the treasures we pursue while blind to the treasure that is right before us in God’s own self. We demand gifts and quickly forget the giver. We set our sights on the f leeting pleasures of this world—a happy family, a prosperous career, a luxury car, a beautiful house, a powerful position, a good reputation, a night on the town, a sexual experience, a good hearty laugh. Like a jilted lover, God laments his bride’s unfaithfulness, choking out his sorrow between tears: “She decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot” (Hosea 2:13, niv).

We fool ourselves into thinking that satisfaction is found apart from God. But in the end we f ind that all of the things we chase are either elusive or unsatisfying. We thrash about for things that are just out of reach. And on those rare occasions that we actually grab hold of them, they fall disappointingly short of our expectations. Satisfaction is not found apart from God or even through God—it is only found in God. The reward is God himself. And so I f ind that my fears, for both security and satisfaction, are laid to rest beneath a genuine relationship with God Almighty. God is all the security and signif icance that I need. w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 35

FAITH IN GOD’S PROMISES r. E. Stanley Jones observed, “In an xiety and worry, my being is gasping for breath—these are not my native air. But in faith and conf idence, I breathe freely— these are my native air.”2 In response to God’s promises we hear Abraham gasping for breath. “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir” (Genesis 15:3, niv). His family line is facing extinction. The whole genealogy listed in Genesis 11, stretching from Shem to Abraham, is about to be broken. The curtain will be drawn on this family name—unless he produces an heir. This is his fear, the anxiety he is living with. His fear blinds him to the connection with what God has just promised.

He struggles to live by faith because of the circumstances that are so diff icult to make sense of. When I fail to f ind security and satisfaction in God it is not because God has failed to provide it. In every case it is because I have become short sighted, failing to look beyond immediate circumstances to God’s more encompassing plan.

But God graciously makes the connection for him. First, the assurance that his family line is safe: “...a son who is your own f lesh and blood will be your heir” (Genesis 15:4, niv). Abraham won’t be the last link in the chain. And second, the pledge that his family line will survive and thrive. “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them ... So shall your offspring be” (Genesis 15:5, niv).

Now it all makes sense. In his real-life fear, God will be his shield and his very great reward. God will offer protection and prosperity.

And having made the promises relevant to his own situation, Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).

So it is when we take the promises of God, believe them, and make them practical to our own situation. Like Abraham, I want to be safe and I want to be well off. Thousands of years later God’s promise remains the same. God is my shield and my very great reward.

D

En dnot es 1 W illem A. Van Gemeren, Gen. Ed., New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and E xegesis, Vol. 2 (Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), 528.

2 E . Stanley Jones quote from Transformed by Thorns by Grant Martin (Victor Books: 1985), 95.

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion: Which image of God is most meaningful for you: God as your shield or as your very great reward?

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Fear in a Handful of Dust

by Tit us O’Brya nt

DAVID K LEIN

I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. —T. S. Eliot 1

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ear has affected every human being from the moment our most ancient ancestors heard God walking in the garden and hid from him because they were overcome with terror. (Be honest: If you heard the Almighty rambling about the back garden, wouldn’t you hide too?) We normally think of fear in negative terms, but from a Christian perspective couldn’t fear be something more than just an aff liction or an unfortunate side effect of humanity? Doesn’t the notion of redemption mean, in part, that God will take all of our bad and with grace and power remake that bad into something good and beautiful? Rather than focus on fear solely as a weakness and f law that holds us back, could we consider our fears as tools to shape us into God’s image and to inf luence our corner of the world with the values of God’s kingdom?

While fear is generally disparaged— cer t ain t y pes of fear h ave achieved respectability among the general population. Phobias relating to running with scissors, playing in traff ic, or jumping out of airplanes indicate good sense to most of us. For a Christian, one cannot do any better than to live in the fear of God. But other expressions of unease or dread seem to be patently “un-Christian.” Take, for example the garden-variety fear of death. Mention to your Christian circle of friends that you are none too keen on the idea of breathing your last and being deposited in the ground and you may be invited to listen to a sermon on heaven or a sing-along about the “Sweet By and By.” I, for one, am none too eager for leaving this mundane world of drudgery and fear and f ind those who are overly enthusiastic at the thought of releasing their f inal breath a cause for concern. Dying troubles me. Although I am alarmed by the prospect of death in general, it is not out of a dread for judgment or pain or even exhaling that f inishing breath (which, may I emphasize, I do not look forward to with happy anticipation). Rather, it is the fear of being forgotten that perplexes me: not merely passing into the shadows of memory, but of failing to leave behind anything that demands recalling.

I feel I am in good company with my dread. Wise Solomon expressed no fervent anticipation of being reduced to dust in the wind: “No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them” (Ecclesiastes 1:11, niv). If our existence is so transient and being forgotten so certain, then what is the point to life at all? The unsettling suspicion that the sum of one’s life: all the pain endured, all the joy experienced, the loss suffered, and the success achieved—in the end amounts to nothing more than “a handful

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of dust” gives teeth to death’s terror. That prudent old man of Ecclesiastes wails for all of us: “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher.

“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless” (Eccl. 1:2, niv).

On my better days, I have tried to teach my children that it is OK to be scared, but it is what we do after we are afraid that really matters. How we respond to whatever terrif ies us def ines us to a far greater degree than what actually makes us feel frightened. This line of reasoning makes some sense when applied to the terror created by f lies buzzing around one’s head or riding a bicycle or heading off to kindergarten in a room full of unfamiliar children; but does it hold any value in managing an all-grown-up fear like mine? How should I approach my fear?

I could deny it...which does admittedly seem appealing. I could very easily allow myself to be so caught up with the responsibilities of everyday living that I never stop long enough to name my fear. If forced to admit my g naw ing disquiet, I could ma sk it by reciting pious-sounding platit udes that mean little but With halting contribute to a veneer of superf icial spirituality.

By hiding my fear, however, I would erect a barrier courage, to genuine intimacy with those for whom I deeply care while also barring myself from an invaluable I could opportunity to grow in faith. own my fear I could try to overcome my fear by achieving sig nif ic a nce th at would prevent the memor ies and use it I’ve left behind from fading too quickly. It seems constructively unlikely that I will invent the next world-changing gadget, discover a miraculous cure, or be the f irst human being to reach Mars; so, my chances seem pretty slim. Beyond the improbability of my reaching such notoriety to ensure my lasting memory, selecting (or even considering) this option only reveals my own self ish attempts to alleviate insecurity.

With halting courage, I could also own my fear and use it constructively. This may be the most diff icult of the three choices. Naming my fear requires self-evaluation and conscious effort to live this life knowing what the end will bring. I will become dust and will probably be soon forgotten by those who come after me, but that does not have to be the end. If I invest my life in other people through planting the good seeds of love and sacrif ice, then my life will never truly be lost— even when I and all that I have known becomes compacted into a handful of dust. w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 39

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bout twenty miles from where I now live stand a pair of bur oak trees that I helped to plant. The bur oak is a marvelous tree with unusually large leaves. It sends down a deep taproot that enables it to survive in drought conditions. Its bark grows thick enough to thwart many insects and even gives it a fighting chance to survive a fire. It grows slowly but is strong. Barring any unforeseen events those trees should provide shade for at least a hundred years after I have been forgotten.

Planting good seeds into another’s life can leave a lasting impact even greater than that of a tree. Choosing to give my life away for others by building relationships with generosity and compassion is an act of planting good seeds into the lives of my family, friends, coworkers, and even casual acquaintances.

These seeds can grow into lives transformed by self-sacrifice and kindness that reproduce from person to person and generation to generation. I think this may have been part of what Jesus had in mind when he said: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24–25, niv). I believe that this is something of the way God can redeem the fear that troubles me. What about your fear?

To be human is to be afraid. Fear ranks among the most basic and powerful of human motivators. It is easy to consider our fears as harmful deficiencies, more difficult to alter our perspective to become aware of the advantages fear might offer, and hardest of all to ask God to—not remove our fear—but to transform our ugly horror into something good and beautiful. If we can accept who we are and offer our entire being—f laws, fear, and all—to our Heavenly Father, we may be surprised with how our fears can be redeemed.

In the hand of God, what is bad can be changed to good. After all, hasn’t God done amazing things with nothing more than a handful of dust before?

As a father has compassion on his children, so the L or d has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:13-14, niv).

En dnot es 1 T. S. Eliot, The Wasteland, lines 27–30.

R eflec t ion Qu es t ions: How are you investing your life in other people “through planting the good seeds of love and sacrifice”? How does this investment speak to the fear of leaving no impact upon the world?

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Disciple J. Barrie Shepherd

(Matthew 14:22-34, Mark 6:45-53, John 6:16-21)

I hadn’t been part of the group– that inner circle that formed around Jesus both to learn and, later, to protect– I had not been included among them all that long, a few weeks at the most, when the strange, uncanny thing happened.

It was late one evening, after a full day of teaching and being with the people along the lake shore, and the Master seemed particularly exhausted by it all.

As the crowds dispersed he pointed toward my fishing boat and told us to go on ahead across the lake to seek overnight lodging somewhere on the other side.

As for himself, he looked so drained, so tugged and torn and tired out, so much in need of solitude–that holy quietness from which he always seemed to return renewed in body and in soul– that none of us could question him, or dared ask him how he intended to make his own way to the meeting place he spoke of.

We launched the boat again and set sail for the opposite shore.

Darkness settled in, and with it there arose a wind, easy at the first, but later swinging round against us so that we had hard going of it, tide and current sweeping us out from the land, and the wind beating us back in again.

Finally we hauled down the sail, it was only a hindrance anyway, and settled in for a weary night of heavy rowing, that, and bailing too, for she was almost over-laden, shipping water steadily both across the bow and backwashed from the stern.

We had struggled nearly half the way across, about two or three miles out, and it was well on toward the dawn, when we caught sight of him.

There was, as I recall, a kind of light, nothing pale and eerie, phantom-like, more a reassuring radiance, comforting and gentle, like the tiny oil lantern we set close beside the bed at home w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 41

when the children cannot sleep, or someone’s sick.

I suppose it was the light that we saw first, And that drew our attention to him.

No one mentioned it right off, I guess we all thought we were seeing things, that the constant straining effort through those long hours of heaving on the oars had made our heads swim and our eyes lose any focus.

Folk see all sorts of things out on these waters, things they never wish to see again, and do not talk about.

T hen he drew closer, seemed, in fact, about to pass us by, and it was Jesus, unmistakably Jesus, slogging across the wave tops as if he were crossing a ploughed field on land.

There was no uncanny f loating, or hovering just above the surface, as some kind of apparition might have done.

He actually walked, the wind and waves, as I recall, whipping about his ankles.

But in our shock at such a sight, coupled with sheer exhaustion, we were convinced it was a spectre and began to moan and even to shriek, cry out in naked terror.

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“ D on’t be afraid, my friends.” He cried.

“I’ve come to help you, guide you to the shore.”

“If it’s really you, Master,” called Peter– a fellow swift to speak and act, if ever I saw one– “If it’s truly you then call me to your side.”

And he responded, “Then come on, Peter, join me.”

So over the side he went, quick as a f lash.

And, by all that’s holy, didn’t he too begin to tramp his way across those waves!

But then, as he was almost to the Master’s side, Peter looked down.

He took his eyes away from Jesus’ face, and immediately was up to his knees, and then his waist in swirling waters.

“Save me, Master!” He shouted. “Oh help, save me!”

And the Lord stretched out one hand and bore him up. “ W hat happened, Peter?” Jesus inquired.

“What was your problem, Faintheart?

Why did you let your eyes wander away from me?”

Then he hoisted Peter back into the boat and, just like that, the wind dropped, the waters calmed, and, almost in a f lash, we were tying up at the dock on the opposite shore.

We were all so stunned nobody knew quite how to react.

Many of us had seen him heal the lame and blind, even cure lepers and the like, but this was a quite different sort of marvel, more mysterious and strange, yes, uncanny.

At that moment, of course, there was nothing else to do but to fall down, right there on the old wharf, and worship our friend Jesus, treat him as the deity he appeared in truth to be.

But as time went by we began to ask ourselves whether we hadn’t actually dreamt the entire thing.

We did not mention it again among ourselves because we couldn’t understand.

It was just too much for us, yes, that and the feeding of the multitude right before.

We began to wonder–Don’t you see?– just what this was we were getting ourselves involved in; we began, as Peter had done on the deep, to take our eyes away from Jesus’ face and look around us at the perils and the risks that seemed so many and so threatening.

It was about that time, it seems to me, that Judas Iscariot started all his questioning, began keeping himself to himself, apart from all the rest of us.

I wonder where he is off to now, leaving the Master’s table before the meal is ended and the final blessing given.

Almost makes me afraid, until I turn and see the Master’s face, and share the confidence and peace that rests within his quiet gaze.

S ometimes, since then, I’ve wondered ...

If he had called to me to join him on the deep that night, would I have followed Peter overboard?

And might I have stayed af loat?

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion: With whom do you identify in this retelling of the scriptural account, and why?

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Finding the Courage to

Pray

CHRIST INE WA AR A

by R achel G. Hackenberg

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or many years, it has been my spiritual practice to articulate prayers through my pen, a habit I began after spending my youth and young adulthood entirely convinced that I lacked the discipline for prayer. As a child, my mind wandered during mealtime grace and my spirit fell asleep during bedtime prayers (taking my body with it).

During my teenage years, I felt paralyzed by the immense task of praying for the whole world; in college, it was the ease and eloquence of others’ prayers that daunted my own prayers. Yet when I took those same prayers out of my head and wrote them down—finally, splendidly, as an adult—praying began to spark my creativity and focus my spirit and engage my whole body.

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Praying by writing hooked me with a deeply satisfying joy of exploring words to draw closer to the Word, and a creative invitation for my pen and spirit to recognize God within the details of life. With the devotional habit of prayer-writing, I f inally named my fear of prayer... and let it go as I realized that I can attend to my conversation with God– anywhere, however imperfectly, yet fully focused– as long as I have blank paper in front of me and a pen in hand. Indeed, in my habit of prayer-writing, I have found that even when I am at a loss for words to pray, just holding a pen helps me grasp a prayer: O God ...grant me your patience.

O God ...grant me your protection.

O God ...grant me your peace.

Dear Jesus...please.

Now I pray with pen in hand while sitting in a coffee shop during the noisy morning rush. I pray while watching my kids’ soccer practices on cool spring evenings, or when taking a break from pastoral busyness to be still in the church sanctuary. Around my house (on those occasions when I bother to sort through paper piles), traces of my prayer life are evident among utility bills, church bulletins, and recycled homework papers.

Spin me in circles, Holy Spirit, and set my feet on a new path

—prayed on the back of the blue envelope of an electric bill.

God, bless me with a word or else bite my tongue to stay silent

—jotted on a paper napkin.

In conversations and workshops about the discipline of prayer-writing, I am continually learning that I am not the only one whose fears of praying “the right way” or “perfectly” can paralyze prayer life itself. So many of us are easily intimidated by an inner demon whispering that our prayers (and our faith) are not good enough.

Still the end of the day comes, still the darkness falls and Orion rises, and a glass of wine does not draw me any closer to communion with You. I am torn between guilt-induced prayer to bridge this silent chasm ... w h y a r e y o u a f r a i d ? | w e av i n g s 45

and mindless silence to turn prayerfully, painfully, away from what I cannot hear anyway. You are — where? — tonight, and I am here alone, here at a loss.

Be in the darkness, I pray. Return me safely to sunlight.

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he relief of prayer-writing lies in the creative license to try out words and phrases and scribbles of prayer, to witness our own prayers displayed on paper, and to engage mind, body, and spirit in conversation with God. Praying through one’s pen is not about f inding the right or perfect words for prayer; it’s about connecting the whole self in the activity of prayer. It’s about exploring the fullness of words in our journeys with the Word Made Flesh through the trials and passions and joys of life. It’s about enjoying our conversations with the Holy, creatively, freely, sincerely, and shedding the fears that have held us back in prayer.

Consider trying prayer-writing for yourself. Hear God reaching out to you in prayer: Stop!

Where are you going in such a rush, child of mine?

Today I am having lunch at your home.

Today I am spending the day with you.

Today I’ve planned to sit with you and listen to your thoughts.

Today it’s just you and me, ref lecting together on life as good friends do.

Stop!

What are your thoughts? Where is your heart today, child after my own heart?

Now read Luke 19:1-6 in your Bible. Listen for words, phrases, emotions that resonate with your soul. Do you feel frustrated, joyful, anxious as you seek Jesus? Do you struggle to make time for prayer? Sit quietly in God’s presence before picking up your pen. Write a prayer to ask God to surround your day with holy stillness and peace.

You might try another prayer-writing exercise to explore the images of God that you use in conversation with the Holy. Begin with this prayer: O God, if I call you Father, will you please watch over me and those in my house, and guard us like a watchman at night?

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O God, if I call you Mother, may I curl up next to you when I have nightmares, and will you soothe me when I am sick?

O God, if I call you Savior, will you rescue me during hard times and keep me from rebellion?

O God, if I call you Lover, will you keep me company through thick and thin and encourage my best self ?

And God, if I confess that you are beyond naming, will you please be greater than me and beyond my understanding, so that the things I cannot fathom but so desperately want — lion-and-lamb peace, feeding miracles by the millions, tears-into-joy justice — can be conceived and built by your imagination?

Will you please be holy so that I can be human, to the best of my ability?

Now read Isaiah 9:6 in your Bible. What name of God—from this passage or from your journey of faith—resonates deeply with your spirit? Let your written prayer be centered on the name(s) of God that you love.

Trust that God does not judge your written prayers like an English teacher, checking your spelling and grammar, or even like a theology professor, double-checking the orthodoxy or coherence of your faith expressions.

Use whatever literary style (or lack thereof ) feels most comfortable and most prayerful to your pen. Trust that the Spirit is present as you pen your prayers, and allow that Presence to affirm your prayers as “good enough.”

Be blessed by the prayers of your pen!

R eflec t ion Qu es t ion: What fears have held you back in your life of prayer? Try one or more of the prayer exercises in this article as a step toward shedding those fears.

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c al l igr aph y by paul shaw

Look for the

digitaL

version of Weavings coming soon!

Let Weavings inform and inspire you on your

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“ D o n ’t b e a f r a i d, I’ve re de e me d you . I’ve c a l le d you r n a me . You’re mine. When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you. When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.

When you’re bet ween a rock a nd a hard place, it won’t be a dead end— be c au s e I a m G o d , yo u r p e r s on a l God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior.”

Isaiah 43:1–3, The Message