Fear

Turn and Face It

Dear Friend,

Who could not be afraid in these times?

If there is peace in our personal world, we only have to unstop our ears or look sideways at a newspaper headline to know that a sister or brother is grieving.

No longer in some distant land, but maybe half a day away.

We know that psychopathic personalities are energised and determined in their willingness to inflict harm. Purposefully, knowingly cruel, their logic is sad, understandable and baffling.

The weather patterns remind us of the folly of our species.

Even hedonism holds out no illusion of escape.

So what now?

When fear comes stalking.

What happens when you turn and look it in the eye?

Maybe it could go something like this.

You move your head first and slowly your body follows. You face the shadow and ask:

“Okay then, what do you have to tell me? What’s your message? What do you want of me?

I know my body is mortal. To age is a privilege, not all of my friends have lived to enjoy. I will one day take leave of this place I call home. Owning nothing, all I have I have use of in time. When my time is no more, I will no longer have need of things. What else do you wish me to know?

Have I made mistakes? Yes. Show me one who has not.

Do I carry shame in my mind and in my body?

How could I not, born so soft and innocent into the madness of love and need and loss! This crazed family of mine.

Can you expose me to anything worse than the purgatory I have carried all these years?

I am loved and I know how to love.

What else do you want?

To torment me?

Do you think you can do a better job of it than I?

I am as stubborn as a mule and you are but a shadow.

And at any rate I love you, it’s your darkness makes me fumble for the light.

What else?

That I created my false, mind made self?

Thank you for reminder.

Turning in thankfulness to the tiny seed of hope and light and truth in me, I know there is a goodness more powerful than anything I made. Whatever loving energy created this world created me and loves me as much as any other.

What else do you want to remind me of?

Maybe an apology I owe but were afraid to give?

Where I have given offence it was not meant, and where it was purposeful I was hurt and wish I’d had the wisdom to know it.

Forgive me as I forgive.

Are we done?

Come visit again, till then let the light shine in you and may peace be in your heart.”

Maybe it could go like that.

If any of these words resonate with you, then you’ve have suffered enough to know the value of the small things. The delicious air. A good book.

There’s this breath and then another and maybe plans to make and carry out.

One friend somewhere.

The next step and the one after.

If you’re overwhelmed then focus on what you can do now, not the whole picture.

The whole picture is a figment of our imagination. We don’t really know how everything fits together, but we can be kind and as loving as best we can in the moment.

That’s a big idea.

One moment at a time.

Small gestures build in power.

Like the gentle persistent wind that carves out the valley from the mountain.

Till tomorrow

Love

Mikey