In the final analysis it’s pride that causes fear. Thus the conversation with my fear could lead to humility. I could reconcile myself to my limits, to my weaknesses and mistakes. “I am allowed to make a fool of myself. I don’t have to be able to do everything.”
But there are also fears that do not point to any false outlook on life, but are necessarily bound up with being human. For example, there is the fear of loneliness, the fear of loss, the fear of dying. In every person fear of death is always present, but in some people it reaches menacingly high levels. So it’s important to speak to your fear. “Yes, in any event I will die.” Fear can help me to reconcile myself with death, to come to an understanding with the fact that I am mortal. When I get to the bottom of my fear, when I let it in, I may sense in the middle of it a deep peace. Fear is transformed into serenity, freedom, and peace.
Another kind of fear can grip us when we take a look at our profession, our illness, our marriage. We worry whether we can make it in our marriage, whether we can be faithful, whether we can endure the pain of our illness. Nowadays one hears about the fear of commitment on the part of young people who don’t want to tie themselves down forever, either to marriage or religious life. Here one of the sayings of the fathers shows us a different way to deal with this fear:
“The story was told of Father Theodore and Father Lukios from Ennatu that for fifty years they ridiculed their own thoughts by saying: Once this winter is over, we’re leaving. Then when summer came they would say: After this summer, we’re heading off. These unforgettable fathers were forever doing that.”
Many people feel anxiety when they imagine always being trapped in the same place, always teaching at the same school, always being tied down to this family. It can help to really say yes to my situation. But sometimes an absolute yes overburdens us; it heightens our fear that we may not be up to it. In that case the point might be to agree with the fathers from Ennatu that saying yes to today is enough. Tomorrow we may be somewhere else.
These methods have been taken over by many self-help groups. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous know they can’t guarantee that they’ll stay sober forever. They pray God for the strength to live without alcohol for just one day. The other thought—to leave the monastery or the marriage, to start drinking again—isn’t totally denied. In fact one plays with it, but in so doing one takes away its power. The thought will come to us one way or another. So it makes no sense to declare outright war on it. If we deal playfully with it, the thought will never overpower us. The method of the fathers protects us from facing all the consequences at once. We enter upon a path in the hope that God is leading us. We can see the next stretch of road, but we don’t think about the whole long, tedious way.
~Anselm Gruen, Heaven Begins Within You: Wisdom from the Desert Fathers
