We Are Not Afraid
Sermon by Steve Edington
October 7, 2007
It happened over 20 years ago in the mid-1980s, before I came here, but the memory is still vivid. I was serving the UU congregation in Stony Brook, New York, out on Long Island, when I got a call one morning from the chaplain at the local University Medical Center Hospital. There was a male patient there who had asked for a visit by a Unitarian Universalist minister, and could I come by. I said I'd be there that afternoon. Then I asked the chaplain what he could tell me about the person and why he was hospitalized. He said he'd rather wait until I got there. OK by me.
By arrangement the Chaplain met me in the hospital lobby. After introducing ourselves I again asked, "What can you tell me about Mr. So-and-So?" His answer, spoken in a low voice, "Let's step into my office and we'll talk about it there." We went to his office, he closed the door, and still keeping his voice low told me that the gentleman who had asked to see me had AIDS. This was information he had not wanted to convey to me in either a phone call or in a conversation in the hospital lobby.
As just noted, this happened around 1986 or '87. AIDS was still a relatively new, and scary, phenomenon at the time. There was more misinformation floating around about AIDS then, and its alleged effects, than there were reliable facts. I was fortunate enough, even then, to have been reasonably well versed on the disease; thanks in large part to information sent out to UU ministers and lay leaders through the UUA's Office of Gay and Lesbian Concerns as it was called then. I knew I could walk into this patient's room, sit and have a conversation with him, shake hands, or even give him a hug if warranted, when I left and not become an AIDS carrier myself.
The reason, in fact, this gentleman - whom I did not know and he did not know me - had asked to see a UU minister was because he had somehow heard that Unitarian Universalists had a generally open and accepting and affirming attitude towards gay people. Other than that he knew basically nothing about us. But, for his purposes, he knew all he needed to know. By the time I first met the man he was already in a very advanced stage of the disease. I visited him once or twice more before he died. His family members who were in charge of his funeral arrangements lived some ways away from New York. I was not involved in the Service they arranged for him.
It was a fleeting moment, back a ways in the past now. But it taught me a lasting lesson about the power of fear. That chaplain didn't even want to say the word "AIDS" in the hospital lobby for fear it might set off some kind of panic. I don't say this to make him a villain in any way. He was trying to be as helpful as he could to a patient who was seeking some spiritual counsel. But he, too, was affected by a mindset, or an atmosphere, that was feeding on a fear of the unknown. AIDS was deadly and it was spreading - so much so that there was a fear of being even near people who had it. And it's quite easy to quickly come to hate what we fear. Since this virus was affecting, in large measure, a portion of our population that was already a target of fear and hatred anyway - then that fear was only compounded. The chaplain, good and dedicated soul that he was, was also operating in an atmosphere of fear, that led him to be overly cautious to the point that AIDS became the disease that dare not speak its name.
Being a fallible human being myself, I'm not immune from the effects of irrational fear. The same goes for all of us. It's part of the human condition to fear that which we don't fully understand, especially if we feel - rightly or wrongly - threatened by it. It was just that in this case I had what I knew was reliable and trustworthy information about how the AIDS virus could and could not be spread, so that I could then act and behave accordingly.
AIDS is still a deadly disease. It hasn't changed in that regard. It still warrants our caution in dealing with it. But I think that some of the advances that have been made in treating it have come about in part because we've been able to lessen the fear factor about AIDS. The sooner we can say "We are not afraid" to some of our more irrational fears about any phenomenon, the better equipped we are to actually deal with it.
Fear, I've come to believe, is one of the more complex and maddening human emotions when it comes to really trying to sort it out. It's like fire in the sense that it can both protect and destroy us. As irrational as it can become at times, fear is still one of the basic and necessary tools in our human survival kit. While we may not put it in this exact language, we teach our children to fear certain things at a very early age: Like cars going by on a busy street - Don't walk out in front of them; Like strangers who may want to do them harm - Don't talk to them or go off with them; Like objects that can harm them - Don't play with knives or matches.
Anyone who has ever raised a child, or had a hand in raising a child, will tell you that one of the most scary parts in that process is when the developing child does not know enough to be afraid of certain things that he or she would do well to be afraid of. One of the many balancing acts of child rearing is in wanting, and teaching, one's offspring to have a basically trusting attitude towards his or her world, and to feel safe and accepted and at home in their world, while also learning how to avoid - or confront if need be - that which is harmful, or even deadly, out there. This is one of the many paradoxes of fear.
Another fear paradox, to move to a lighter note for a moment, is that's there is something exciting - even exhilarating, about being scared half to death. That's what a lot of carnival and theme park rides are about. People will pay good money just to have the living daylights scared out of them. Or, think about your emotional level, and the excitement that comes into your voice, when you're recounting an especially harrowing experience: "O Man, was I ever scared! I mean I thought I was going to die!" As frightening as whatever the actual experience may have been, we can still get a real rush in recounting it - when we're in a safe place to do so, of course. Again, it's like fire - we're drawn to and even entranced and excited by the very thing that can destroy us.
One of the best short commentaries on fear I've found is by the psychiatrist and ethicist Willard Gaylin in his book Feelings. This little book is part of my personal canon of truth. Dr. Gaylin points out in it how many of the feelings and attitudes we generally regard as negative - like fear, anger, guilt, and shame - actually have both positive and negative sides to them.
To run with that a bit as it relates to fear, it was their capacity for fear and anxiety that served to warn our earliest human ancestors that they were in danger. If an early homo-sapiens type felt no fear at the approach of a lion or tiger or bear, say, then he or she was not long for this world; and we, most likely, would never have shown up at the point on the evolutionary chain where we are now. I think is a sound point on the part of most anthropologists that our earliest human ancestors organized themselves into families, then tribes, and then societies, cultures, and eventually civilizations largely on the basis of an underlying anxiety that told them they could not survive on their own in a world they often felt mystified, overwhelmed, and often threatened by.
My theory - which is not just my theory at all - is that when our earliest ancestors also became aware of how much harm and danger human beings could inflict upon one another, in a way that even outdid lions, tigers, and bears, that's when they began to form themselves into tribes, cultures, and civilizations. Some of what was going on with all that was that human beings were banding together to protect themselves from the shadow side of humanity itself which they had learned to fear. I guessing it went something like this: We, in and amongst ourselves here, will band together so we can assure the safety of one another against whatever "they" may be up to "out there."
From an evolutionary point of view it was inevitable, and even necessary, that this would happen. But it has also given us situations, time and again over the course of human history, where what could be called a rational level of anxiety or concern or even fear within a given society can very quickly and easily move to the level of mistrust and hatred, and to an irrational fear of anyone or of any group of persons who look, act, think, or believe differently from the perceived norm. This is another of those paradoxes of fear, and one that we human beings have had to live with throughout our history.
On that note, I'll say that we, in this country, are at a point in our history where we need to deal with this particular paradox of fear for the sake of our own well being as a society and nation. Be advised that I'm now about to make my first foray into what has already become an absurdly long presidential campaign season. I have at least managed to hold off until four months before our primary here in New Hampshire. What I have to say does not pertain to any one candidate or party. It is instead about the atmosphere in which this campaign is being conducted. I see all of the candidates in something of the same position as that chaplain I spoke of earlier: Good and dedicated people (well, most of them) trying to operate in an atmosphere of fear.
One week ago, in his New York Times editorial column the commentator Thomas Friedman captured my sentiments quite well. Over the past six years, in stating his post-9/11 opinions, I've sided with Mr. Friedman on some occasions and found myself at odds with him on others. I'm with him on this one, and I'll read some of what he had to say:
"How much, since 9/11, have we become the 'United States of Fighting Terrorism.' Times columnists are not allowed to endorse candidates, but (I can say) who will not get my vote: I will not vote for any candidate running on 9/11...I will only vote for the 9/12 candidate...I honor and weep for all those murdered on that day (over six years ago). But our reaction to 9/11 - mine included - has knocked America completely out of balance, and it's time to get things right again. It is not that I thought we had new enemies that day, and now I don't. Yes, in the wake of 9/11 we need new precautions, new barriers. But we also need our old habits, and a sense of openness. For me, the candidate of 9/12 is the one who will not only understand who are enemies are, but who we are."
He continues, "Before 9/11 the world thought America's slogan was "Where anything is possible for anybody." But that is not our global brand anymore. Our government has been exporting fear, not hope: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your fingerprints.'"
To play off Mr. Friedman's well-put comments, and engage in a little personal fantasizing, here are just the opening lines of a speech I'm still waiting to hear from a presidential candidate - from any one of them:
We were maliciously attacked six years ago by people who truly hate and fear us, and we had to respond. While in some ways we got it right, tragically, much of our response has been both to export, and foster on our home front, our own brand of fear. It is a fear that has allowed us to be needlessly taken into a war that is claiming the lives of American soldiers by the thousands; and those of Iraqi civilians, by the tens of thousands. It is a fear that has compromised the integrity of some of our democratic institutions and practices. It is a fear that has generated a level of mistrust and anger towards our country in many parts of the world that did not previously exist at the level it now does. My first priority as President, of course, is for the safety and well being of our country, and I will indeed fulfill that role. And a good deal of our well being lies in how well we can trust in one another and trust in the democratic principles and institutions that have sustained us for over two centuries. Our well being as a nation lies in good measure on how we choose to participate in the community of nations - realizing that there will always be some who will regard us as their enemy. Any nation that strives to be free, open, and democratic - and to live in accordance with it best instincts and values, can do so when those instincts and values are not tested or threatened in any significant way. I will not allow the current tests and trials we are being given cause us to abandon or diminish all that has brought us this far....
If I can just hear that much, then I'll at least sit up and pay enough attention to see to where the candidate is going with it. I don't have all the answers, or know of all the means, that will, in Friedman's words, give us a sense not just of "who are enemies are, but who we are." But then I'm not, thank God, running for President. Right now I'm just looking and listening for someone who can make me believe that it is at least still possible for us to live primarily by hope and possibility rather than being driven by fear.
As I'm sure many of you guessed, I took the title for this sermon from a stanza of the old civil rights hymn and anthem, "We Shall Overcome." Many of those who sung those words: "We are not afraid...We are not afraid...We are not afraid...today..." had all kinds of very good reasons to be very afraid. Some of those who sang it lost their lives for the sake of the cause for which they sung and marched and bravely worked. Others were beaten, tear gassed, fire hosed, and jailed. They were not just singing a nice sounding song. They were making a statement of faith - and not just with their words but also with their lives and livelihoods. Some of them, I have to believe, were afraid of what could befall them for the stances they were taking. Who wouldn't be? They had every good reason to rightly fear what the power of racism was doing to their lives, and the lives of all who were under its thumb.
But what was really being said with these four words, whatever the anxiety that was felt by those who were singing them, was that we will not allow your fear and hatred towards us to drive us to fear and hate you. Instead we will stand and we will act and we will live our lives in the faith and in the hope that the strength of our values will prevail.
That's what overcoming fear is really all about. It's not denying it, since at times fear can even be your friend. It lies instead in deciding what role fear is going to play in your life - both your personal life and the life of your larger community and society. It's deciding when it can rightfully protect you, and when it is shutting you down and keeping you from thinking and acting from your better self.
I'm going to close by going citing once again someone I referred to last week - but using another of his books this time. In his book A Private History of Awe Scott Sanders takes the fear paradox of which I've been speaking to a cosmic and spiritual level. He writes, "I want to recover the original meaning of the word awe which signifies a two-sided emotion. On the one side are wonder and reverence and on the other are terror and dread. The terror and dread arise from our awareness of being tiny, fleeting creatures in a vast and unfathomable cosmos. The wonder and reverence are evoked by the great size, complexity, elegance and mystery of the universe."
Those earliest human ancestors of ours that I was speaking of earlier no doubt felt those two sides of the experience of awe of which Mr. Sanders writes. They looked out at a universe they surely found frightening and awe-inspiring all at the same time. And that particular bit DNA has been passed, I believe, to us. We struggle with our finitude and our frailty, while also looking for, and try to gain some sense of, the mystery that lies beyond our fleeting selves.
Part of living by faith, for me as a religious liberal, means living with the sense that my life is part of a greater reality, a greater mystery, whose fullness I will never know but within which I feel sustained nonetheless. So while I will live with my fears - both the rational and the irrational ones - I also strive to live with a greater hope.
Stephen D. Edington
October 7, 2007
