I am growing more and more convinced that there is no greater enemy to the sacred adventure than fear. For some months now I've been doing an experiment in which I've been trying to be more aware of the influence of fear in my life. Each time I notice that my shoulders are soar or my neck is stiff, I try to look 'beneath the surface' to identify why I'm tense. With astonishing frequency, the culprit is fear. The stiffness in my neck points to my fear that I've disappointed someone; the tight shoulders speak to the fear that I'm not accomplishing all that I think I should; the headache exposes the fear that a well-laid plan is not working out; the ache in the stomach speaks of a coming challenge of which I'm afraid. "The issue is in the tissue," someone has said; the various aches and pains are symptoms of fear's pervasive influence.
One of the many challenges related to fear, of course, is that when we're frightened we tend not to think as clearly. Someone I know suffered from test anxiety. Every time she sat down to take a test she became frightened of failure. Because she was afraid, she couldn't think clearly enough to perform well on the test. An ironic loop if ever there was one. When we feel threatened (whether we really are threatened or not), fear narrows our thinking, limits creativity and clouds our decision-making processes.
When religion becomes sick, it becomes another vehicle for fear. I am sometimes astonished at how deeply rooted this is. Legalism is but one powerful expression of religious fear, where the letter of the law dominates all that we do and say. Even powerful practices like prayer, reading scripture and corporate worship can be driven by the powerful fear that we are disappointing God or a significant other if we don't do them. Dogmatism is another expression of fear-based religion. "I'm right and you're wrong and that is the end of the conversation." Here, community is destroyed in the name of being 'right.'
I believe that fear-based religion is to Christian faith what pyrite is to real gold. "Perfect love casts out all fear," St. John wrote to the church of the first century. The ground and foundation of the Christian community is not fear, but love. I wonder what would happen if we regarded all of the powerful practices of the Christian journey-- practices such as prayer, receiving communion, fasting, worship, and service--as a grounding of our lives in love, if each day, we would make an effort to close out distractions for at least a few minutes and do nothing but be fully present to the love of God. It would be difficult, to be sure. There are so many things, often fear-based, that demand our attention. I suspect, however, that if we could regularly make space to be fully present to the love of God, we would find that there is no room in love for fear and that the freedom, creativity and courage that are requisite to the sacred adventure are to be found there.
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