Tag: fear

accept what I resent, change what I fear

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

Step 4 of Alcoholics Anonymous, which involves making a “searching and fearless moral inventory” has two significant categories: resentments and fears. Through making this inventory, and sharing it with another person, I can become awake to the ways that my anger (justified or not) and my fears are operating in ways that are not helping me (or, for the alcoholic, driving them to alcoholic obsession and compulsive drinking).

The famous Serenity Prayer also has two major categories: things I cannot change, and things I can. In this prayer, I ask God for serenity to accept the former, and the courage to change the latter.

I think these categories neatly align.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change…
…which are probably the things I resent… and my lack of acceptance of them will not serve me well. 

Courage to change the things I can…
… which are probably the things I’m afraid of trying to change… my lack of courageously trying to change them will not serve me well.

peace through prayer

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The ultimate goal of God is shalom.

God desires flourishing relationships in all possible relational directions between all entities – God, self, others, creation. In one sense, those relationships are really simple. God creates and sustains all things by eternal gift. Creation, crowned by the humans that image God’s generous love, share in the gifts and the giving to one another. In the swirling mass of relationships we negotiate every day, this perfect peace would play out at dinner tables, in restaurant kitchens, on crop fields, through international trade, in halls of politics and power, and alongside the neural pathways of each and every brain. Everything as it should be. Sounds nice.

But from Genesis 3, a fatal disease has been corrupting these relationships. And that disease is fear. I have a thesis that all fear can be framed as fear of loss. Everything we value – relationship, freedom, life, meaning – we fear to lose. This fear takes up residence in our minds and hearts and poisons all of our thinking, imagining, planning, self-protecting and wondering about life, our families, our friends, our work, our goals, the situations we inhabit. Fear drives us.

In some sense, it seems to be obvious that dealing with fear involves paying attention to and shaping my postures and attitudes towards the things I fear to lose. Perhaps Christian Scripture and Yoda (think Episode III – Revenge of the Sith) agree – I must Trust in the Lord and Let Go of everything I fear to lose. And it seems that prayer is the simplest and most effective tool we have for doing this work.

In Philippians 4, Paul gives some famously helpful guidance on how to pray. This guidance deals directly with the fear and anxiety problem we have in our relationships (and it’s interesting that he gives this guidance immediately following his discussion of an interpersonal conflict – a relationship needing some shalom – between Euodia and Syntyche). He writes:

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Some observations.

  1. Joy evaporates fear like light chases away darkness. It’s so important that Paul repeats himself.
  2. The language is sweeping. When do I Rejoice? Always… Pray about what? Every situation… Anxiety? No, not about anything.
  3. No specific ‘answers to prayer’ are promised here, but it is promised that my anxious heart and my obsessed mind are protected by ‘the peace of God and they can rest from fear and trying to understand whatever is happening.

the human connection between anger & temptation

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The sermon on the mount is the best teaching on human living. It lays down the patterns for full and complete humanness. After the Beatitudes and opening statements, the first two issues that Jesus deals with are a) anger leading to murder, and b) lust leading to adultery. It won’t do to simply label murder and adultery as unlawful, immoral or wrong. Jesus knows we have to get to the heart of these matters and deal with our anger and lust.

The early chapters of Genesis are also profound in their statements about humanness. Every human is like Cain, who gets ‘very angry’ and is tempted into taking actions that violate the humanity of his ‘brother’. In chapter 6, we see the moral devolution of humanity is so degraded that the beautiful daughters of men were being treated like sexual property. The Creator is grieved to the point of being willing to uncreate the whole creation.

Anger and Sex are connected. We need not illustrate all the ways that this interrelation plays out through rape and pornography.

Their interrelation also shows up in another text that is likewise profoundly awake to the realities of human nature: The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, written by Bill Wilson. The Step 4 inventory (see chapter 5, ‘How it Works’) of ones own life invites an addict to reflect on a) Resentments, b) Fears, c) Sex conduct and d) Harm to others.

Anger and Fear can be understood as a natural pair, just as Sexual dysfunction and Harm can be. For example, consider Resentment and Fear. When I resent another person, I am looking down on them in judgement (perhaps sometimes justified judgement); and when I fear someone, I am looking up at them. When I process my resentments (and fears) properly, I discover that I need not look down on (or up at) others. I can look them in the eye as equals. This humane equality is a profoundly disturbing idea for someone whose identity is dependent on feeling superior to others.

The same is true for the Sex and Harm pairing. Healthy sexual relations is a mutually helpful matter of freely giving and freely receiving. Literally ‘intercourse’. Harm, by nature, including sexual harm, is the opposite of giving and receiving. Instead of giving it forces itself on someone. “You will have this whether you want it or not.” Instead of receiving it is taking. “I’ll take this whether you’re giving it or not.” It is violent and violating.

So therefore, according to Jesus, Moses and Bill, it seems to be a human reality that when we feel resentment towards someone who we feel has wronged us we sooner or later are tempted to some kind of violence or dysfunction.

This connection between anger and temptation, finally, is seen within The Lord’s Prayer, which is – not surprisingly – the humane prayer in the structural centre of the humanising Sermon on the Mount, preached by the one Christians see as the True Human. I am instructed to link my own forgiveness from my Father in heaven, with the forgiveness I am continually working at with others who have ‘transgressed against’ me. Immediately following (and linked to) this, is that I must be on guard against being led ‘into temptation’.

Whether our resentment is justified or irrational, political or personal, sharply focused or a foggy haze; we are reminded of an important moral human truth. The longer we allow anger to fester and burn the more tempted we can be to find our way into a fix, escape, or treat. This could be in the form of a verbal insult, a preachy self-righteous Facebook comment, some form of sexually energising daydream or exploration, or any other drug of choice (working late hours, over-eating, gambling, numbing myself with drink).

And so, the journey to full humanness must include humane prayers where we lay our vulnerability to anger and temptation before the Lord.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.

Or, we might paraphrase…

Lord, help me to so savour your mercy towards me that I too flow with mercy towards others, especially those I am likely to point the finger of superior judgement towards, whose wrongs I feel the most burned up about. The ones who threaten me and interfere with how I think the world should run. Those who make my blood boil. The ones who, like me, do not deserve mercy.
And keep me far away from letting my anger drive me into some kind of tempting and ultimately self-serving power trip. Deliver me from the fleeting and temporary soothing ego trips of violence of any kind to myself or another.

Amen.

the opposite of the serenity prayer

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

The beauty and poignance of the Serenity Prayer is evident, and known to many a 12-step addict.

God,
grant me the Serenity
to accept the things I cannot change
Courage
to change the things I can
and the Wisdom
to know the difference.

It is a sanity-inducing prayer.
But what about the insanity that it opposes?
That kind of insanity flows not from prayer…
but from self-focused, self-seeking thinking.
Something like…

Self,
keep me in the Chaos
that refuses to accept things I cannot change
Fear
that blocks my efforts to manage myself
and the Insanity
to keep judging others and justifying myself.

the sneaky allure of selfishness

~ dwc ~ Leave a comment

I’m a prayer guy, and I’m a fan of 12-step spirituality.

So one of the resources I use for prayer is the guidance offered in the AA Big Book for step 11.

It suggests some patterns of meditation and prayer “upon awakening”. Here’s the first bit of advice…

“On awakening let us think about the twenty-four hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.”

AA Big Book, page 86

I am in awe of how practical this advice is. If I’m not directed by God, I will eventually (or immediately!) drift into spiritually unhelpful ways of thinking about my day. It mentions three huge categories of bad day-planning: “self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.”

In my insecurity, I can lapse into the self-pity of imagining how certain situations may not go my way, or dreading the experience today of the effects of having been wronged yesterday.

In my self-protecting fear, I can drift into dishonesty, looking at the day ahead with a distorted lens that lies to myself by exaggerating the good that I think I might do, or minimising the mistakes I may make.

In my grandiosity (itself a product of insecurity), I can wade into the waters of imagining how impressively I might perform in this or that situation.

Later on in these couple of pages of advice, the AA big book has a strong suggestion around making our prayers that are oriented to being useful to others.

We ask especially for freedom from self-will, and are careful to make no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work. You can easily see why.

AA Big Book, page 87

I don’t think it is theologically wrong to pray for ourselves, of course. But it is not hard to see the wisdom of this advice. Our thinking about the day, and our ways of going about the day itself, are quickly distorted by self-focused motives. Heck, I can find myself drifting into worry, fear or self-protecting resentment even during a time of prayer itself!

The advice here is to always remember our priority of being useful to others. That is damned good advice.