Fear

I have an irrational fear of over-designed buildings. It’s a complex complex complex.

The swordfish has no natural predators to fear…….except the penfish, which is said to be even mightier.

What is the fear of giants called? Fee-fi-phobia. I used to fear giants. Now I look up to them.

The only thing Flat-Earthers fear… is Sphere itself.

I have a horrific fear of elevators. I’ve started taking steps to avoid them.

I told my psychiatrist that I have a fear of palindromes… The quack! He prescribed me Xanax.

I told my therapist that I was afraid of the dark. She told me to close my eyes and pretend it’s not there.

I’m developing a fear of German sausages. …I fear the wurst.

A study reported that public speaking is the #1 most common fear. Fear of death is #2. Jerry Seinfeld says it means that if the average person has to go to a funeral, he would rather be in the casket than give the eulogy.”

Woody Allen said “I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.

I don’t know what possessed me to say I would give a sermon on fear! I started thinking about fear, thinking about fear, thinking about fear. For three weeks I couldn’t get a good night’s sleep.  I usually have a pretty good idea what I want to say before I write a sermon. I could not get a handle on this one! In truth its not the topic. It’s the upcoming Ordination that has brought out my fears.  People tell me its going to be my big day.  I’m like yeah Palm Sunday was Jesus big day, and look what happened to him less than a week later.

Fear is like the mother of all religious subjects.  I calmed myself remembering that this is a UU congregation.  I don’t have to give the way to think about fear, the way to overcome it. If I can raise some good questions, challenge y’all a bit and encourage some reflection and new behavior, that would be .. pretty amazing actually.

I promised to share different angles, different takes on fear. Many people have said that fear of death is the reason that religion exists. Religion always gives a prescription, not for death but for our fear of death.  Death is really the mother all fears. Whatever else we fear losing, the ultimate imagined loss is loss of existence.

I thought I’d begin with Jesus. I realized that if I jumped into the gospels deeply, I could spend all of our time right there.  You know it was Jesus fault that I became UU.  He was forbidden to me as a Jew and I couldn’t resist.  I also thought that Christians had Jesus all wrong. I’ll admit by bias.  As a Jew it has always seemed to me that non-Jews just don’t get Jesus. Okay maybe I’m a little defensive or offensive. For two thousand years Christians have persecuted us because we allegedly killed Jesus? I’m tempted to say that the church killed Jesus, by which I mean that they badly distorted his message.

Trying to jump right into Jesus on fear, I went to the story in synoptic gospels where rich man wants to be part of God’s future kingdom that Jesus predicted.  Jesus first directs the man to Jewish law. Rich guy is
down with that. Then Jesus tells the rich guy to give his possession to the poor and follow Jesus.  This is similar to what he asked of each of his disciples: leave your old life completely behind you and follow me. You see Judaism, like UU, is more concerned with behavior than beliefs. Jesus we know was a Jew. He never asked anyone to believe that he was G*d. He taught a way of life. He told what it would be like to love G*d and to know G*d’s love.

Giving his wealth to the poor is undesirable, and the rich man leaves. Jesus then said to his disciples “its easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Who then can enter God’s kingdom? Jesus replies: “What is impossible for man, G*od makes possible.

Difficult, if not impossibe for a rich man to get into heaven?! How often have heard that emphasized by the conservative Christians in the political sphere today? Does Christianity concern itself with this challenge? What happened to Jesus total focus on the marginalized? When did following him become obedience to the oligarchs of this world?  But I digress.

Fear and facing mortality is the core of what Jesus taught.  I find his teaching deep, rich and very challenging. I mean it challenges so much! It seems to me that the church lowered the bar tremendously from the height of what Jesus asked. Jesus taught nonattachment to the things of this world. That’s Buddhist. Jesus taught  willingness to surrender everything to gain right relationship with God. That seems very Hindu to me.

Jesus gave an example of a big thing, a camel passing through the eye of a needle, and suggests that G*d can make the impossible possible.  Jesus suggested that G*d (or life) has something in store for us that seems unattainable. Our minds can’t grasp it, and a power greater than us will make it possible.

After Jesus, I’m taking us to Rabbi Nachman of Breslav.  One of the things he is best known for was his  emphasis on joy.  Keep in mind that Jews are a people who have spent most of our history as foreigners in
lands that sometimes tolerated us, always exploited us and periodically ran us out or killed us. Nachman said that in times of despair we must lift our voices in joyous songs of celebration!

He is also known for a message about life and fear.  I will give it to you the way that I learned,… in a song. It usually sung in Hebrew.  I will offer a translation;

“All the world is a very narrow bridge, a very narrow bridge. All of the
world is a very narrow bridge, a very narrow bridge. And the thing is
not to fear, not to fear, not to fear at all.  And the thing is not to
fear, no not to fear at all!”

I don’t know about you but that sounds like denial.  It reminds me too much of growing up male in NJ.  Being afraid was not permitted. You certainly didn’t admit to being afraid. Recently from this pulpit I spoke of the way males are conditioned- told at every juncture that we must deny our vulnerability. When we showed fear, we were told that we were acting like girls. We were made to regret acting like girls.  Don’t be a scaredy cat! Don’t be a pussy!

I am grateful for years of training to overcome conditioning that taught us to repress feelings. I want to throw my resource behind those who challenge bullying. I want to withdraw support from leaders who routinely punish people that show vulnerability.

And yet I always loved Breslav’s song. And Breslav’s teachings resonate and ring true with my life experience.  What did he mean, not fear at all?

When I picture Breslav’s very narrow bridge, I picture it with those little wood slats that move some as you go across them.  I image this bridge as high above the ground.  On such a bridge, something makes me want to look down to see where it is my feet are passing. I want to see the view; the trees.  If there is water below I definitely want to see that.  However, to do so causes me to begin shaking.  There have been a couple of times in perilous heights, that I felt paralyzed with fear. To cross the very narrow bridge on high, I must look straight ahead.  I must keep moving.  I must see my way across.  Perhaps he meant something like that.

I have gained much encouragement from a quotation of similar sentiment. Winston Churchill said “when you are going through hell, keep going.”

In his first inaugural address, and at the peak of the great depression Franklin Roosevelt said: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself–nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Roosevelt’s famous phrase can be traced to Unitarian Henry David Thoreau who on September 7th, 1851 wrote in his journal “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear”

Another of my teachers Harvey Jackins said that “fear is always irrational.” I have explored and wrestled with this idea.  However, one of Jackin’s students, another teacher of mine, Charlie Kreiner coached me to embrace my fear.  The very idea was confusing.  I had agreed to talk about my fears in front of a room full of men.  I was shaking, literally. Charlie didn’t tell me to man up.  Far from it! I took his direction. I embraced my fear.  It flew in the face of my conditioning. Although terrifying it was amazing.  Instead of believing shame that
would deny it, I showed that a man could trust men with vulnerable truths.  Victory!

My continued lessons with fear have included learning how to sit with my fear, with compassion and curiosity choosing to find out what is going on.  I confess that my ICU experienced took me past my ability to still with fear. However, I sat enough to conclude that much that we identify as pain is actually fear.   In the absence of fear, pain still hurts but it is not miserable.

I don’t think it’s wise to see fear as an enemy.  I believe that everything in nature serves a purpose.  It helps to have compassion for human fear of death. We certainly evolved with a survival instinct.  We seem to have a natural aversion to things that could kill us.  But is that the same as fear?

Is it possible to face death without any fear?

Many people have found religion to be helpful in making peace with death.  I find fascinating and rich the different stories, myths, rituals, ways that humans respond to our fear of the unknown, of what happens to us when we die.

We know that fear of dying can keep us from living.  Fear can be a thief stealing our ability to enjoy things we once loved to do.  It can keep us from fulfilling our values.  At one time or another all of us have chosen comfort and safety instead of acting for justice and wellbeing for individuals or for society.  We pull back. And it costs us a sense of connection.  We lose faith in the power of our love.  We all fall short. So we need to forgive ourselves and mourn that we didn’t find the courage or the way to be the people we wanted to be. If we want there to be more love in the world, cultivating compassion and appreciation of ourselves needs to be part of our answer.

One thing that gives me hope is the resiliency of nature.  Also, to realize that death is nature’s way.  The more people I know that have died; the less unknown death becomes.  If they could do it, I guess I can do.

When we were in our mother’s womb, pretty much everything we needed was provided for us. Maybe we don’t like leaving.  But as the days go on, leave the womb we must.  Perhaps death is something like this. 

Science tells me that we are part of something so much bigger.  Religion tells us this too. Reason and my faith tell me that what G*d, what life, what the Great Mystery has in store for us is greater than any of us can imagine.