Her
Our Appreciated One on fear and belief:
“Fear is a small cell with no air in it and no light. It is suffocating inside, and dark. There is no room to turn around inside it. You can only face in one direction, but it hardly matters since you can’t see anyhow. There is no future in the dark. Everything is over. Everything is past . . .
“People can stop by and tap on your walls. . . . They might just make things worse. It is safer to stay where you are, where you know what is is what, even if you can’t breathe, even if you cannot move. That is how fear feels.
“Belief is something else altogether, although it is not what some would have us believe. It is not a well-fluffed nest, or a well-defended castle high on a hill. It is more like a rope bridge over a scenic gorge, sturdy but swinging back and forth, with plenty of light and plenty of air but precious little to hang on to except the stories you have heard: that it is the best and only way across, that it is possible, that it will bear your weight.
“All you have to do is believe in the bridge more than you believe in the gorge, but fortunately you do not have to believe it all by yourself. There are others to believe it with you, and even some to believe it for you when your own belief wears thing. They have crossed the bridge ahead of you and are waiting on the other side. You can talk to them if you like, as you step into the air, putting one foot ahead of the other, just that: just one step at a time.
“It takes a lot of courage to be a human being, but if Jesus was who he said he was, the bridge will hold. Believing in him will not put us in charge, or get us what we want or even save us from all harm, but believing in him, we may gradually lose our fear of our lives. Whatever the human condition we find ourselves in, we may finally learn to live it, maybe even to love it, if only because we believe he lives and loves it too.”
