FEAR

The Rev. Leslie Westbrook

Interfaith Counseling Services

September 1, 1996

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church

"Why in the world did I wait so long to do this?" I was angry with myself, and not a little afraid. Back in June the Division of Motor Vehicles had sent me the notice that I needed to renew my driver's licence. In the last week of August I was finally driving to the Glenmont Shopping Center to take the sight test, hand over my $20, and sit before a camera to have a mug shot taken for my new, five year license. According to the notice, this was the last week I could do it.

"There's no reason to be so afraid," a calm, grown-up internal voice responded. "Don't be so silly. It's just a driver's license renewal. Everybody has to do it. It's just to check your eyes. The state needs to be sure you can still see the road . . . By the way, you can still see the road, can't you?"

Panic (and fear) set in. My eyes! My middle-aged, faltering eyes. For me, the change in my vision is a symbol of my becoming more vulnerable as I grow older. The spheres and lenses of my eyes are just not working as well as they did a few years ago. They are the sure sign of being old, over the hill, no longer attractive, or even worse, incompetent! Oh my God, my eyes!

As I steered the car with my left hand, I reached with my right to my purse, resting on the passenger seat, and gave it a gentle squeeze. Yes, the hard case was there, with the bifocals, for close and far sight, nestled inside. "You may find these helpful," the optometrist had calmly told me last spring. "You'll pass any driving sight test without them, but you may find them helpful." But what did she know--she looked like she was about thirty years old, and was still paying off her college tuition. My internal voice of reason calmly recited: "If necessary, if you just can't make out those little letters on the bottom line, you can pull out the glasses, use them, and have the photo taken with glasses."

If I were honest, I had to admit I was irrationally angry with the optometrist, and with the Division of Motor Vehicles. I was angry with anyone who in the slightest way could threaten to take away from me what I felt I needed for my very basic survival, the right to drive a car, and to do it 'youthfully.' "I would appreciate not having to deal with issues about appearance, competence, and the fact I will be fifty in two weeks, thank you," I quipped to myself as I parked the car. With studied calm, I walked over to the line of people waiting for the DMV office to open.

We all stood there, in varying degrees of anxiety. "A backup plan," I said to myself. "You have a backup plan. When you're afraid, always have a back up plan." But I was perspiring, and checking and rechecking the envelope in which I had carefully tucked the check, the old license, the signed organ donor card. "Forget yourself," I said to me. "Look at how other people are doing with this stupid process." Unbeknownst to her, the poor woman standing before me became the object of my studied gaze. You couldn't miss it. She was obviously anxious. She was short, thin, tense. Her body movement was quick and erratic. She looked a little like a...chicken. "Now SHE'S nervous," I thought to myself. "I am glad I handle things better than that." My gaze moved up the line, and I saw an enormous male adolescent standing next to his petite mother. "Some people just can't do this sort of thing alone!" I repeated in my head, feeling disdain, and envy and not a little alone.

I got to the head of the line. "Next," a young man called out. It was my turn. I was damned if I was going to take out my glasses unless necessary. "Look into the machine," he directed, and I was gazing at those little letters. "A, E, O (pause) and I guess, Q," I recited, with some uncertainty about the last letter. "Good," he responded. "Are you registered to vote?" "Yes," I replied, wondering how this related to my vision. He started typing into his computer.

Suddenly I realized he had moved on. It dawned on me that I'd passed the vision test without a hitch. Relief flooded in. I floated up out of my fear and narcissistic preoccupation, and noticed a room filled with people, signs, color, activity. A large sign showed a line for people to register to vote. "Do you try to get people registered to vote also?" I asked. He nodded. "That's great," I responded, and he smiled and handed me my receipt. I was in. I was part of the respectable and competent group known as licensed automobile drivers in the state. I was so relieved. I could tell him my appreciation by noticing his circumstance, his activity. I could give him an honest complement about his work. I could attend to his situation.

When we are in fear of losing something that we believe to be essential to our well-being, human beings often respond in age old patterns. We may get angry, or disdainful, or belligerent. We may distance ourselves from the offending feeling by projecting it onto others. In especially intense times, we may then reject the other who carries, who represents, the feeling or quality we so vigorously reject in ourselves. Years ago, in experiments with rats, psychologists determined that in the face of overwhelming fear, rats typically choose either to fight or flee. Human beings often respond in the same manner when we are intensely afraid of losing something we believe is essential to our well-being.

Parents of young children hear a daily litany of fear appropriate to the developmental challenges the children face:

"Mom, what if no one will play with me at the new camp? What if I don't know anybody?" Over the years, I've heard our sons, Loren and David say these words more than once.

"Mom, what if I mess up on the stage? It's hard concentrating on my cello with everyone looking at me. I'll make mistakes, and I'll be so embarrassed."

We sometimes attempt to feel courageous, after feeling fearful, by displaying the feared behavior ourselves: "Mom, what if I don't get invited to be part of Danny's club? I won't have anyone to play with," coupled only a few days later with, "Danny and I played together yesterday, and we told Malcolm he couldn't play with us."

The fear of being hurt, of being excluded, of being left alone, of being insulted or embarrassed, of being rejected or powerless or vulnerable, can be intense. Part of my joy in parenting children is that as I watch them wear their hearts on their sleeves, I have a chance to rework my own experiences of fear. My children's fears remind me of my own, and of the fears I have encountered in others.

I remember delivering my first sermon at Arlington Street Church, in Boston. Standing behind the pulpit, my legs shook so violently I feared I would fall to the ground in a helpless heap before the closing hymn and benediction. I had worked on that sermon for hours. Nevertheless, at the ripe age of twenty-seven, I managed to express my entire storehouse of spiritual wisdom in twelve minutes. Coffee hour began ten minutes early that morning. I believe the surveys that show people fear public speaking more than death are true.

I remember the mixture of joy and anticipation, as well as fear, when I married Roger, and when I birthed our first child. In these instances, the anticipation far outweighed the fear. Nevertheless, if you had asked me if I could have miraculously just "been married" or "had the baby," without having to be there, a part of me would have said yes. Flight is a powerful response to fear.

Sometimes we disguise fear, and it takes hard work to realize it is the major emotional experience with which we are struggling. In response to our fear, we do things that make us look heartless or cruel.

I remember 1962. I was living with my family in a three-story walk-up in Silver Spring. I was a student at Montgomery Blair High School. My grandmother, then sixty-nine, was a frail, southern woman, Jehovah's Witnesses in faith, who had lived a life of deprivation and hardship. My memories of visiting her when I was a child included sleeping on the floor of the small room she had on the second floor of a ramshackled boarding house in Durham, North Carolina. Over in the corner was a small, two burner stove, and when we arrived she always placed on that stove a pot of chicken and broth. We would watch her roll out a mixture of flour and water, cut it into strips, and drop it slowly into the rolling broth. My grandmother's chicken and dumplings were always the high point of our brief visits to her place. I remember her as a woman who struggled alone in her last years. She was what today we call a "survivor." I always looked forward to visits to her place. She nurtured and loved her grandchildren.

It was different in 1962. We drove to National Airport to pick her up and drive her to our apartment. I was fifteen, an overachiever, about to leave for college. Emotionally, however, I was very vulnerable. On the one hand, my family could not have held me back from college with a team of horses. On the other hand, I was afraid of going away to school and of all the challenges I would face that first year.

When we picked up my grandmother, her appearance horrified me. She seemed a shadow of herself, washed out, grey and very thin. As we climbed the stairs to our third floor apartment, she required the assistance of my parents. I remember the topic of her conversation. She believed that she was nearing the end of her life and she anticipated being united with loved ones and with Jesus in heaven. She wasn't saying anything I hadn't heard often before, but my emotional response was intense and startling. At fifteen, I was a young, rational Unitarian Universalist, and I questioned her statement of faith, argued with her, told her I did not believe what she believed. I was incapable of hearing the hope in her theology. I could not see how her theology helped her feel that she was worthwhile and that her life had been worthwhile. Relentlessly, I argued with her. My mother, totally surprised at my anger, cautioned me to quiet, which I did. I was angry with my grandmother, and very confused by my anger. A year later, what I feared most occurred. She died. It was only years later that I came to understand the intense fear I experienced when I saw my grandmother near death. I was afraid for myself. I needed her emotional support and presence, and she clearly was preparing to die. Years later, I came to realize that my intense fight response was an effort to deny a reality that terrified me. If my grandmother died, I did not know how I would go on.

If we do not realize that fear is fueling our emotional response of fight or flight, we can unwittingly become alienated from each other. We can cut ourselves off from life-giving relationships. What can happen in one-to-one encounters, the fight or flight response to fear, can also shape the process of whole groups.

I remember 1980. It was an exhilarating time in my life. I'd been working in the area of women and religion at the Unitarian Universalist Association. I'd had the extraordinary opportunity to staff the national committee that developed an affirmative action program for women ministers who were seeking parishes. I also had staffed the UUA committee that sponsored two continental women and religion conferences on women's spirituality. And I was serving as the curriculum development editor for an adult program written by the Rev. Shirley Ranck entitled "Cakes for the Queen of Heaven." I was being paid to study feminist theology!

But there were also difficult lessons to be learned while I worked at the Unitarian Universalist Association. The UUA, after all, is only a human institution, open to all the political problems of every other human group. I felt pain observing some of the political maneuvering in that large, very human religious institution. I learned lessons about inclusion, exclusion, competition, envy and--yes--fear. It seemed to me that women and men alike were often frightened and confused as they vied for power and inclusion. In particular, I had a chance to learn about the power of fear in individual psychology and in whole-group process. I was able to conceptualize about what I was observing when I read a powerful story by Grace Paley entitled "Edie and Ruthy." The story goes like this.

Two young girls sit on a stoop outside the front door of a city townhouse. They are friends. They are talking about boys and games and school and things they have heard their parents say. Ruthy says that, if someone attacked her country, she would fight for it. She would be a brave soldier. Edie says she wouldn't, that she would stay home with her mother. She says she would be afraid. They gently quarrel. Then suddenly, they see a large mongrel dog wandering down the street in their direction. Sitting frozen in fear, they do not speak for a minute. Then suddenly Ruthy (the one who would be brave in time of war) jumps up and dashes in the house. She slams the door behind her and leans her full weight on it. Edie, caught outside with the dog nearing her, is terrified and bangs on the door, "Ruthy, let me in." Her voice is shrill. She tries desperately to push the door open, but fear fills Ruthy and she will not move. Edie suddenly quiets, and waits. The dog approaches, turns toward her, sniffs at her shoes, and then ambles on down the street. A few minutes later, Ruthy throws open the door and an older sister finds the two girls sitting on the step, crying wildly, their arms around one another.

Paley's story cuts to fifty years later. It's Ruthy's birthday party. She is telling the story of her and Edie on the steps, and of what happened. Edie sits quietly, and then in rebuttal, Edie tells Ruthy that it just as easily could have been she, Edie, who ran and left her friend alone with the threatening dog. The women's conversation then wanders into plans for the day, what they will do together to make the day meaningful and enjoyable.

Grace Paley's story focuses on the potential effect of fear on human relationships. Ruthy is the one who in her terror excluded Edie. However, Edie tells Ruthy fifty years later that it could have been she who closed the door on her friend as the large dog approached. When we are frightened, when we feel wild terror, we often fight or flee, and we often pay no attention to the people around us. Sometimes unwittingly, in our self-preoccupation, we may hurt others. Sometimes intentionally, in what we believe to be self-preservation efforts, we may intentionally hurt others.

Paley's story points to an alternative form of behavior when we are fearful. After all, we are more than rats! We can do more than simply fight or flee. If we can summon the strength to realize we are afraid, and if we can turn to another human being in trust and express our fear, we may be able to discover a life affirming way out of fear's grip.

I am not naive to the danger of fear. It can wreak havoc on human relationships and human activity. Thank God the young man at the DMV office had no idea of the cauldron of mixed emotions I felt last week as I compliantly recited alphabet letters flashed across a screen. Thirty years ago, when I lashed out in fear at my grandmother, I am sure I astonished and hurt her. In Grace Paley's story, the fear that propelled Ruthy to flee from the dog endangered her friend. Behavior which strong fear creates can sometimes exact the highest price--that of human life.

Fear is the motivating emotional experience which stimulates fight or flight behavior. Today, in my work as a therapist, I watch as some individuals and couples struggle with fear. I respect them for taking the important step of reaching out for help, for to reach out is a sign of hope--the most basic of religious responses to life

I find it impossible to be morally self-righteous because I remember and know the power of intense fear, and I know what helps when it becomes paralyzing.

In Grace Paley's story, Edie and Ruthy turn back to one another, and sit on the front stoop, arms around each other, crying. Years later they tell each other one more time it could have been either one of them who leaned against the door and kept the other from safety and human connection. By now, however, they can tell one another about their fears and turn to each other for support and comfort. After all, they are not alone, although they will still, periodically, be afraid.

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church
9601 Cedar Lane, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4099
Tel: 301-493-8300    Fax: 301-897-5713
e-mail: office@CedarLane.org
Sunday Services at 10 a.m.
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