Hey! He's not dead!
Considering that I have about three years' worth of archives sitting off to the side there, and because I kinda feel like it, I may be relocating this blog sometime in the future. But that's not the point...
I want to talk about fear. It occurred to me a few days ago that fear is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to holiness, love, being a good person, good karma, whatever you want to call it. Take the "three question quiz" to start us off here:
1): What is the most common phrase in the Old Testament?
2): What is the most common phrase in the New Testament?
3): Collectively, how many instances are there of these two phrases throughout Scripture?
The answers are, respectively: 1): Do not be afraid, 2): Be not afraid, 3): Just over 1,000 times. I may have the answers to #1 and #2 switched around, but you get the drift. The general idea is that God does not want us to be afraid. But very often, when it comes to life in general, we're afraid of something; messing up, becoming a bad person, pushing ourselves, losing respect, losing familiar things, pain, etc. The interesting thing about fear is that it's very much self-centered. The entire evolutionary purpose of fear is self-preservation. Self-preservation. Because of this, I would hazard a guess that fear is the opposite of love, which is centered outward (centered outward...hmmm...that doesn't really make sense. Let's try "focused outward.").
If fear is the opposite of love then it makes sense that if we want to learn to love (and Jesus thinks we should), we must first let go of fear. If we indulge fear, we will become focused on ourselves and what we are afraid of, and the resultant selfishness will move us backward in a very bad direction.
As Yoda so sagely puts it: "Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to sadness, sadness leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate...leads to suffering."
I've been having a lot of experience with fear lately. I'm fairly certain that I "suffer" from this weird "condition" known as scrupulosity. If you don't know what this is, it's basically the obsessing idea that one has seriously sinned and, as a result, is cut off from God. It's kind of scary; I'll be going over and over "X" event in my head, trying to scrutinize my motives for acting and the action itself, trying to determine if I've committed a mortal sin, and often I get so wrapped up in this "weighing of atoms" (as one author put it) that I get seriously confused and scared. Thanks to the guidance of a priest, this whole situation has gotten considerably better, but it still nags at me and, I think, manifests itself in other ways than just worrying about sin (instead, for example, I just worry too much about doing the right thing in general. Such fun).
I've gleaned from reading and the advice of others that this condition feeds off of a lack of trust, first of all in God's love and mercy but also in the counsel of others. It may also have to do with pride; scrupulous people tend to set up unrealistic expectations for themselves, and when they don't meet those expectations, they freak out.
Basically, it stems from an inability to be at peace with your own imperfection; a failure to recognize the fact that you yourself are a very weak creature, and if it weren't for God's abundant grace and mercy, you would be a total train wreck. This may not sound like a happy thing to contemplate, but I've been thinking it over and it's actually a relief. The gradual decision to put your spiritual well-being into God's hands (very, very capable hands, I might add) is very freeing. Does this mean that you stop trying to be a good person and just "leave it up to God?" Well, no. You have to mess with it a bit, trial-and-error your way into finding that peaceful middle ground between trying too much and not trying enough. At least, that's the impression I get.
Ultimately, I think this is just something very much worth remembering, whether we're intimidated by sin, or by working to change ourselves, or by giving up those things that drag us down. Be not afraid. Because, in the end, you have the biggest and best good guy on your side.
I want to talk about fear. It occurred to me a few days ago that fear is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles to holiness, love, being a good person, good karma, whatever you want to call it. Take the "three question quiz" to start us off here:
1): What is the most common phrase in the Old Testament?
2): What is the most common phrase in the New Testament?
3): Collectively, how many instances are there of these two phrases throughout Scripture?
The answers are, respectively: 1): Do not be afraid, 2): Be not afraid, 3): Just over 1,000 times. I may have the answers to #1 and #2 switched around, but you get the drift. The general idea is that God does not want us to be afraid. But very often, when it comes to life in general, we're afraid of something; messing up, becoming a bad person, pushing ourselves, losing respect, losing familiar things, pain, etc. The interesting thing about fear is that it's very much self-centered. The entire evolutionary purpose of fear is self-preservation. Self-preservation. Because of this, I would hazard a guess that fear is the opposite of love, which is centered outward (centered outward...hmmm...that doesn't really make sense. Let's try "focused outward.").
If fear is the opposite of love then it makes sense that if we want to learn to love (and Jesus thinks we should), we must first let go of fear. If we indulge fear, we will become focused on ourselves and what we are afraid of, and the resultant selfishness will move us backward in a very bad direction.
As Yoda so sagely puts it: "Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to sadness, sadness leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate...leads to suffering."
I've been having a lot of experience with fear lately. I'm fairly certain that I "suffer" from this weird "condition" known as scrupulosity. If you don't know what this is, it's basically the obsessing idea that one has seriously sinned and, as a result, is cut off from God. It's kind of scary; I'll be going over and over "X" event in my head, trying to scrutinize my motives for acting and the action itself, trying to determine if I've committed a mortal sin, and often I get so wrapped up in this "weighing of atoms" (as one author put it) that I get seriously confused and scared. Thanks to the guidance of a priest, this whole situation has gotten considerably better, but it still nags at me and, I think, manifests itself in other ways than just worrying about sin (instead, for example, I just worry too much about doing the right thing in general. Such fun).
I've gleaned from reading and the advice of others that this condition feeds off of a lack of trust, first of all in God's love and mercy but also in the counsel of others. It may also have to do with pride; scrupulous people tend to set up unrealistic expectations for themselves, and when they don't meet those expectations, they freak out.
Basically, it stems from an inability to be at peace with your own imperfection; a failure to recognize the fact that you yourself are a very weak creature, and if it weren't for God's abundant grace and mercy, you would be a total train wreck. This may not sound like a happy thing to contemplate, but I've been thinking it over and it's actually a relief. The gradual decision to put your spiritual well-being into God's hands (very, very capable hands, I might add) is very freeing. Does this mean that you stop trying to be a good person and just "leave it up to God?" Well, no. You have to mess with it a bit, trial-and-error your way into finding that peaceful middle ground between trying too much and not trying enough. At least, that's the impression I get.
Ultimately, I think this is just something very much worth remembering, whether we're intimidated by sin, or by working to change ourselves, or by giving up those things that drag us down. Be not afraid. Because, in the end, you have the biggest and best good guy on your side.
posted by James at
4:12 PM
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