Religion in Daily Life

By the Rev. Edward Chinn, D.Min.

http://www.allsaintstorresdale.org

American soldiers in Central Iraq “dream of things from normal life, like lingering over Krispy Kreme doughnuts and hot coffee, with no one shooting at you and sand that stays were it belongs” (The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 27, 2003). Overseas, the men and women in our armed services face forces and conditions that create fears. In our daily lives, we have the choice of facing our fears with faith or facing them without the support of a unifying outlook on life.

There are three points I want to make about our fears: to face them; to grace them; and to place them. Around 600 B.C., an ex-slave named Aesop arrived at the court of King Croesus. Aesop told a fable about the Lion and the Goat. Together, they went to a spring to quench their thirst. They quarreled over who should drink first. As they argued, they noticed vultures circling overhead, waiting to feast on the one who would be defeated in the quarrel. This gave them a new insight. They faced their fear of defeat and drank together from the spring.

Not only do we face our fears; we can “grace” them by looking at them as gifts from the graciousness of the Eternal One. Years ago in a village in the Holy Land, a visitor saw a tall Arab boy playing a flute. The visitor asked to see the flute because it seemed heavy and awkward. The boy explained that he had made it out of an old rifle-barrel. He had found it on a nearby battlefield, filed it down, drilled holes in it, and from a weapon a destruction he had created an instrument of music. When we grace our fears, we make them spurs to creativity. Our fear of ignorance can create the desire to be educated. Our fear of disease can create the willingness to receive medical care.

When we face our fears, we can place them within the power of some mighty purpose. The playwright George Bernard Shaw was painfully shy. Sometimes he would walk up and down along the River Thames in London for a half hour to get up the courage to knock on a friend’s door. Similarly, Shaw overcame his fear of public speaking because he was so intent on delivering the message he had in mind. He placed his fears into the power of some purpose that had gripped him. Shaw did not solve his fears as though they were a problem; he dissolved them as though they were obstacles to his purpose.

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