I’ve been thinking a lot about fear recently.

It started last week at the Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, when bestselling author Mary Karr asked an audience of writers, “What would you write if you had no fear?”

I knew instantly that such a question had the power to transform and enliven my writing, that it would undoubtedly end up on a hot-pink sticky note above my desk, and that its implications extended far beyond the printed page.  For the next logical question is of course, “How would you live if you had no fear?”

Frankly, my initial reaction to both of these questions frightened me a little, for it involved asking harder questions about faith, confronting deeper insecurities within myself, and creeping farther down the dark rabbit holes of doubt that lie in wait in all the scary corners of my mind…which made me wonder, “Is hope really the thing that keeps me from disbelief? Or is it fear?”

Then, when I got home, Dan and I watched the movie “The Invention of Lying,” an okay film based off of a brilliant concept—mankind has yet to evolve the capacity to lie until one man (Ricky Gervais) tells the first. If you’ve seen it, you know that the movie touches on the human fear of death and implies that God, heaven, and hell are lies created to ease these fears. It’s not exactly a nuanced point (hopefully Gervais will eventually learn to direct without a 2×4), but it struck a chord because I often wonder if I would still be a Christian were it not for my fear of death.

And finally, today I came across an intriguing post by Donald Miller (who has been on quite the blogging streak recently), in which he asks if our personalities influence our theology. He uses Calvinism as an example, noting, “Have you ever noticed Calvinists think in black and white? And I’m not just talking about their theology, I mean they think in black and white about everything.” He goes on to suggest that perhaps our ideas about God correspond to our various positions on the Enneagram.

I’m glad Miller wrote on the subject because I’ve always noticed a tendency for certain personalities (including my own) to correspond with certain theological positions, particularly when it comes to the Calvinism/Arminianism debate. But as I worked on my comment after Miller’s post, I got to thinking about the role that fear plays in our respective positions on this particular issue. As I said in the comment, “I can’t help but wonder if the Calvinist’s deepest fear is things not being in control, while the Arminian’s deepest fear is being controlled. One is afraid of chaos, the other afraid of imprisonment.”

We’d all like to think that we live and work and pray from a center that is full of bravery and hope—(and when I think of the times when I have really stepped out in faith to follow Jesus, I think that perhaps we can indeed summon these virtues from time to time)—but I wonder if to deny the role that fear plays in our art, our faith, and our theology is to deny one of those dark but universal things that, deep down, we all have in common.

What about you? How does fear play a role in your lifestyle, your faith, or your theology? And how would you live if you had no fear?

Collision

The sadness comes from knowing how temporary (frail, the poet Shelley would write) life is. Lucas will be 18 before I can say “Gerber baby food.” I’m going to wake up one morning and realize I am not nearly as young as I perceive myself to be.

—

Some day, maybe later than sooner, Lucas is going to ask me about the mystery of the Spirit. I’m going to do three things. At least, today this is what I’d say.

First, I’d talk about Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus in John’s gospel. What an interesting conversation. Of course, I’ll save him all the academic interesting tidbits like the difference between Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (I’m guessing he won’t be interested in that in a long time). I also won’t bring up the literary point about when Jesus stops talking and John (the writer) picks up. After all, John’s Gospel is a series of conversations. Here’s what I’ll say: Lucas, do the trees move the wind or does the wind move the trees (”The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, buy you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going”)?

If that doesn’t satisfy, I’ll talk to him about U2’s song “Mysterious Ways.” If you are not familiar with this song, which I’ll assume most of you are, you can click here to read the fascinating lyrics. There are three ways this song is interpreted by U2 experts like my friend Greg. 1) This is a song about a boy falling in love with a girl (and the mystery that lies within this roller coaster ride) 2) An explicit ballad written to describe the role of the Spirit in the life of Jesus follower OR 3) A midrashic commentary on the life and death of John the Baptist. Which one is right? The answer is probably “yes.”

If Lucas is still awake at this point, I’ll tell him what I should have told him all along.

When your mother and I were newly married, your mother had a dream. She dreamed that she was in a huge building. While walking near the top of this large sky-scraper, an enormous wall of water came crashing over the top of the building. Immediately your mom awoke and told me, in an urgent voice, of the dream.

The next morning I woke up to the news on CNN that a large tsunami had devastated parts of Asia, leaving thousands of people dead, many more without food, water or shelter. One of the worst tragedies of my lifetime. I’m guessing hundreds of people had similar dreams that night.

When you were just a baby, your mom had a dream that she was pregnant with a girl (which was not true). The nurse in this little dream was Kara’s friend Sara Whitten. Random. Totally random. She does not work in the medical profession.

The day following the dream, Kara learned that Sara Whitten had herself just learned of her unexpected pregnancy (in real life).

There are other stories. Stories for other days.

The wind moves the trees.
Talk about the things you can’t explain.
You hear its sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it’s going.

“All nature speaks with an articulate voice: everything in it is song, music and sound. All beings whisper, sigh, hum, quaver, chirp, roar, howl, bellow, groan, shriek, weep or murmur. The song of the crickets, the cicadas and the frogs, and the whistling of which the stripped squires greet each other, and all the other voices of the fields are one great prayer. This is the reason for the silence observed by those contemplative monks who have dedicated their voices to the choral chant. They know that every voice is a prayer.”

– Ernesto Cardenal in To Live is to Love (page 28)

I know I’ve posted that before . . . but I love this depiction of God.
—

I was able to watch the U.S. Men’s basketball team defeat Spain (thanks to modern technology). What an incredible game. One has to give credit to Spain for constantly coming back just when it looked like the game was over. If not for some guy who speaks fluent Italian (Kobe), Spain might have the gold instead. That was a fantastic game to watch. I still think this team is a notch down from the original Dream Team of 1992.

The writer began with this introduction because he was interested in recent discoveries regarding the human brain. It seems that recently, scientists and doctors have made great strides in understanding the relationship of the “right brain” and “left brain” within the human person (a fascinating area to read and research). In order to understand the relationship, doctors severed the nerves or connecting points between each side of the brain in patients who suffered from epilepsy and mysterious seizures.

The discovery made by doctors was remarkable. They found, that if the right/left brain were severed, a person, over the course of time, could actually develop as two people within one. A man, for instance, would fight himself over reading a book. He would open the book with one hand, and shut it with the other . . . turn the light on with one hand, turn the light off with the other hand. Once the mysterious connection between the (now) polarizing regions had been severed, the patients became a person at odds within their own person.

Fundamentally, we are narrative creatures. This is why the writer began with the observation regarding the writing of Virginia Woolf. She knew, decades before these scientists, that humans are complex creatures. Art and science are just now coming together on this issue. I personally think one could go back even earlier to, let’s say, the character of Jacob in Genesis.

Most important in this discussion is the notion that humans are people who primarily learn within the context of a story. We remember in narrative fashion. We react in narrative fashion. We look towards the future in narrative fashion. When the patients mentioned in this study went about the rehabilitation process, they did so within the context of stories—trying to remember where they used to go, who they used to go with, why they used to behave in certain fashion. The only way a human can perform the previous is by remembering and retelling the stories of their lives.

At the conclusion of the piece, the writer asked an innocent but provocative question, “We are narrative creatures . . . that’s for sure . . . But the question remains: we cannot for certain determine the identity of the one who is telling the story.”