My heart is beating fast, and I feel my breath quickening. In fact, my heart is beating so fast that I am finding it hard to keep up. My body feels restless; there is a slight trembling and sense of urgency that pervades every pore. The fear is so real, I may as well be about to jump out of an airplane or about to undergo potentially life-threatening surgery. But, in reality, I am sitting at my desk at work, staring at a computer screen of unfinished business, and giving into the many voices that battle for my attention. Half an hour passes and I am still listening to these voices: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt being the dominating characters.
Lately, I have been writing a fair amount about fear, the future, and uncertainty. In fact, the themes of change and transition may well be the primary topics of this blog. It seems that since I started this blog these themes have emerged on their own. It was never intentional, but I seem to want to write most when I need to navigate my way through uncertainty. It is my way of charting my course through this thing called life.
Fear can be a good thing, I think. It makes us acutely aware of the dangers around us and brings us deeper into the present moment. But as soon as we become paranoid, or when fear debilitates us, it has become fear with a capital F. It is personified and walks with us daily, or rather, looms over us like a heavy blanket. Recently, I have settled for the companionship of Fear, allowing it to accompany me throughout the day and into the night.
I was watching Oprah’s Soul Series today, where she interviews Rev. Ed Bacon about his views on spirituality versus religion. That main topic aside, he brought up the point that either we live in the House of Fear or the House of Love. We cannot be in both at the same time for “there is no fear in love,” says John in 1 John 4:18. So, what does it mean to enter the House of Love? How does this alleviate our fear?
As I mentioned briefly, I recently chose to allow Fear to accompany me in my daily life. But what if I chose Love instead? For me, it is about learning to love myself and love my life as it is. Naturally, I begin to fear when I begin to compare my life to others. This reveals to me that many of my fears have to do with my identity. When my life doesn’t look the way I thought it would be by now, when others seem to be doing things I dream of doing, or when I feel that certain talents within me aren’t being fostered, I begin to fear that my little canoe has floated down the wrong stream.
There are some things we cannot control in life, and sometimes we cannot control where the river takes us. I once heard a First Nations woman describe how she deals with the conflicts between her upbringing and engaging with the ‘modern’ world. “I learned to float down the river of life with my feet straddled between two canoes,” she said. These are words of wisdom I have never forgotten.
For me, I enter the House of Love when I learn to love who I am without having to finish the phrase “I am.” I dwell in the House of Fear when I rely on my identity to give me a sense of certainty. My fear that my canoe is floating down the wrong stream is an illusion in itself. There is no such thing as the wrong stream, even though we may choose to diverge from it in the future. And at times I might need to enlist the help of another canoe. This is the way of life, and either we can fear the rapids ahead, or we can paddle quickly towards them, excited to get splashed and jostled, all the while knowing that a gentle eddie lies somewhere downstream.
© Meghan J. Ward, 2008
