“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid… You refuse to do it because you want to live long… You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take a stand. Well you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.” Marin Luther King
I thought about just ending my writing here, but the reason why I picked this quote is because of what Jesus challenges us today in the Gospel, “fear no one.” Easier said than done. Isn’t it interesting God is always calling us out of our fears. It’s not that we don’t have them or that we can easily shrug them off, but God is calling us to override them, to acknowledge them and to make healthy choices that will bring about a greater peace in our own life and in others. Isn’t that what they call courage?
I think it’s always important for me to keep an eye on my fears. How cunning and baffling they can be. I maybe really angry with someone or something. I may prefer my anger rather than admit that I am afraid. I feel threatened and therefore I am going to protect myself by striking them back. Is that really addressing my fears? Or just looking at my raw fears. One minute I’m afraid that I am going to lose popularity, and everyone will abandon me. The next minute I am afraid of losing security and where I live. One thing that I fall into and maybe you do too is that I don’t look at my fear and I stay in the fear instead of acknowledging that fear and listening to what is God’s voice in the situation. Everyone is going to abandon me, really everyone? Or who really gives me security? Can I just hear God’s voice, “not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted.”
We can look at our darkest fears and imagine what God might say to calm us and if we have trouble then maybe we can talk to someone who can help us. Yes we have fears, but God has something to say to them. Most of all can we look to what Dr. King has to say? Do we really want to be 90 years old and have succumbed to fear or do we want to learn to be free?
God bless,
Fr. Chris