Little Feathers: Fear's Equal

Little Feathers: Fear's Equal: Fear keeps us from falling in the gorge. It keeps us from driving too fast (at least, it should). Fear keeps us aware of our mortality so th...

Fear's Equal

Fear keeps us from falling in the gorge. It keeps us from driving too fast (at least, it should). Fear keeps us aware of our mortality so that we can guard and treasure our bodies. That's the good fear.

Fear can also steal the joy of the day. Fear of getting cancer, fear of losing our worldly possessions, fear of losing our personal freedom, power, and discernment (whether to disease or politics), fear of losing people we love. But, no matter how we employ our knowledge and what wisdom we've garnered about the futility of worrying, fear can be the power over us that takes what time we've got and smashes is into a small thing that crumples under the enormity of horrible possibilities.

Which brings me to the gift I got last night. Up here in the mountains of New Mexico, far from the lights of cities or towns, the sky is a constant feast for the soul. And last night, before the moon rose, the stars were so bright and so close, they felt personal. Bob and I sat outside and could not stop staring at them. Blue ones, red ones, twinkling ones, steadily burning bright ones ( I do know they aren't all stars, but that's the name I give them). We had not been outside long when we both saw a huge shooting star. It streaked across the sky with a tail of light that was gone in a second. But it lingered in my heart the longest time. It didn't really make me want to see more so much as it made me want to remember it. Because it was fear's equal.

The cosmos is not merely humbling. For me, with the gift of those stars still shining in my mind this morning, the cosmos is liberating. Yes, we are microscopic in comparison. But we are not inconsequential. This gift of the sky, the heavens, the universe and beyond, this is proof that all will be well. No matter what happens to the stock market or the trade war or climate change, humans cannot do away with this vastness.

Part of my armor against the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' (thanks, Will, that phrase has been in my mind since I first heard it as a child), part of my defense against the fear that steals, is this sky. Because I see the fingerprints of a creator whose passion for creating keeps my heart beating. Keeps me waking up knowing that love is the author of the stars, and that love is here now. A thing of hope, waiting to be borne and shared by the created.

I was wrong when I titled this blog. Because fear is not the equal of hope. Not when I remember the ancient truth, that I was created to love and be loved. The one who made the stars and the cells of my heart is here now. Saying, fear not.

Of Tricycles and Home

There's a poem called The World's Greatest Tricycle Rider, by C.K. Williams. The poem tells of a wildman inside, one who rides with no hands, upside, fearless. But the wildman is growing older, and the poet worries that because he has not shared his wisdom with the rider inside, the poor wildman is doomed to ride again and again around the same block.

Growing older is accompanied by so many clichés, it's comical. Is there any new thought under the sun about the losses of aging? When I read this poem for the first time this last week, it caused little lights in my brain to spark some new ideas. New to me, at any rate. 

What if clinging to the ways I've always been, the abilities I've always had, is actually holding me back from the progress I can make at this time in my life? What if grieving the loss of strength keeps me from trying something new that makes better use of my current state? What if I'm actually better at things I've not tried than at riding the tricycle around and around the block, my feet overshooting the pedals? And, what if there is great joy to be found in trying the new, joy that would mitigate the sense of loss?

They say (don't you love "them") you can't go home again. I understand that it is because time has changed us, even if time has skipped over the actual physical place we grew up. And time has taken away people we love who inhabited our home with us. So, what if we free ourselves from the need to do the impossible, and open our hearts to the home around us? What if we look for ways to make this older body our home, make this group of people our home?

This process of setting the child inside free to love this place and time is a conscious decision. It must be a journey of the spirit that makes this time of life as precious, as productive, as important to our souls as our youth. In a society that idolizes youth, it can seem counterintuitive. Allow ourselves to celebrate aging? To cherish the life left to us instead of longing for the power and beauty of our youth? It might take some work. It might take giving that wildman a two wheeler. But think how much more comfortable he will be with a bike that fits!