The Fear Factor
The Rev. Canon Thomas H. Conley
Pastoral Theologian-in-Residence
There used to be a TV show entitled, The Fear Factor. It was a contest to see who can conquer their fears when in the presence of all sorts of threats: heights, water, doing stunts on moving vehicles, eating varied sorts of distasteful things. The one who conquers their fears in the fastest time wins…you guessed it, money. The show has appeal because it connects with us. We all know fear. Especially since 9/11 the fear of terrorists and the death and destruction they are capable of reigning down upon us has brought up allied fears, brother and sister fears that are hand-holding buddies of the “big” fear. Ernest Becker wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning book several years ago called The Denial of Death. His thesis was that the fear of death is really behind and under all our fears. He was convincing.
Whatever the seeds of our fears, we are all subject to them. We live in a world of fear. The air we breathe is now rated according to colors. As I write this, the air-of-the-day is coded “red,” a serious health hazard to all creatures, especially the already ill. The water we drink has too many “boil” advisories. The stock market has placed our portfolios in jeopardy, and our savings for retirement have taken a dive with the unstable market. There is greed and dishonesty in high places in a host of corporations, and the fear of being snookered out of our money, and more importantly, our trust of others is always with us. The con artist is always looking for easy prey. We seem to all be scrambling to find enough trust to counter the fear that is so prevalent. As Merrill Abbey has observed: “While it is true that we are afraid because the times are dangerous, it is also true that the times are dangerous because we are afraid.”
Within our families and personal relationships, and more crucially within us, fear is there, too. No intimate relationship is free from the fear factor. We lose one another. We frighten one another. We are abusers, we can be cruel to those we love the most, and pain seems a constant companion in the human journey. We have great capacity for good deeds, but our capacity for evil is staggering and with it the fear that such rancid behavior brings. We even have fears we have let no one know about. Secrets seem to be the raw material of the soap operas. Secrets are the cloaked pieces of our personal lives.
Now if this piece is beginning to get to you and you can feel the depression creeping in, then that is the point. None of us is exempt from the fear factor. But there is help and there is hope. We do not have to bear our fears alone. The One who forms the values for my life says, “perfect love casts out fear.” My love and yours cannot be perfect, but His can and is. Therein lies our hope. You see, it is possible to live in the midst of all the perils I have just catalogued and cope, manage, survive, even find some abundance of life in their midst. That is what we do at this Center. We help to find hope. We take on the fears one at a time and pull their stingers, defang them, teach one another how to survive and thrive even in the face of all our fears. It is possible. I see it happen every day. Eric Hoffer once said, “you can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.” What we do here is to take the wraps off what our enemy uses against us, even if we are the enemy. We name the fear. We face the fear. When we do, its game is over, the jig is up, the power is broken; faced with advocates to stand with us, the bully fear scampers into hiding. It is a beautiful thing to watch.
So, when the fears begin to get more than you can handle, come to see us. We are here for you, your family, your friends. And we know all the names that fear travels under. We can help.
Peace and love to all. Tom+
