What is your greatest fear? There is no shortage of reasons to be afraid, as life offers many challenges. Concern can accumulate in a lifetime like rings in a tree. Unlike arboreal additions, however, the anxieties which often encircle our awareness are quite different to the new growth girdling a maturing tree. One constricts. The other strengthens.
“We really need to try to be more open.”
As usual, my wife was direct and on point. We had just ridden a gondola up the side of a mountain, marveling at the summer majesty of the Colorado Rockies in response to the recent winter’s abundant snowfall. Our gondola ride had not be a quiet one; shortly before the doors closed in the boarding station, another couple had joined us, a much younger pair. When one of the two interlopers had apologized for disrupting what we thought was to be a trip of soft solitude, I had said something semi-welcoming. But our body language had undoubtedly communicated something very different: disappointment.
What a mistake! The couple was delightful. During the ten minute ride to an altitude of close to two miles above sea level, we learned a bit about their background, how they were spending a summer working remotely from the local mountain town, what they enjoyed about both this region and where they would be returning at summer’s end. The conversation enhanced our ride, our day, reminding us that nature’s glory is not always meant to be experienced in solitude. Better still, the interaction offered humbling counsel on the importance, even the vital place, of continuous engagement, receptivity.
It is so easy to close, to recoil, to seek internal cover in the face of each day’s fresh potential for frightening rebirth. It takes courage to turn and unfold, like a flower greeting the sun and elements, when we know not what harm may befall such vulnerable baring. Far easier is a posture of caution, defense. The array of potential provocation loitering beyond transparency’s threshold can be paralyzing.
That’s where faith enters. What I fear, while understandably relevant, should be secondary to what I believe. Because cradled within my beliefs lie the aspirations of my being, the hopes of my existence, the reasons I find during my most private moments to live, to become someone better today than the person I was yesterday. How I act should be guided by what I believe.
Is this about religion? Wisdom traditions based on values promoting positive action beyond selfish place pour steadying foundations beneath frequently unstable human footing. But belief can also include spirituality and sensibility that defies categorization while resonating with purpose and intent. We are not alive for ourselves. We could not live without others, whether of human or other biological form. It makes no sense to build layers of defense when our very being depends on connection.
And yet we do it, or at least I do, far too often. A voice inside me may call for caution. My imagination may fill my spirit with prospects of misfortune, for myself or for those I love. It is easy to lose oneself in a narrative of separateness, of independence. In response to what I might fear, I can construct borders that divide, that compress, that deliver my best self to the clenched grip of my sometimes worst instincts.
Faith – a belief in something greater – liberates. Based on trust instead of proof, it offers no guarantees, only the awareness that the gift of being is shared. Everything is interrelated, interconnected, even interdependent. I can chose to believe that, or I can live within a circumscribed shell of suspicion, of deliberate discretion. The path to peace and growth is illuminated by that daily decision.
I am learning how to turn from identification of my fears towards a more affirming realization of my faith. The experience, however fleeting, feels freeing.
Well said, Mark!! Rich
“Everything is interrelated, interconnected, even interdependent.”