January 5: Be Not Afraid

January 5
Shivers, Tim. 2009. Be Not Afraid in Vancouver Dialogues.

It is no wonder that so many sacred texts are focused on the issue of fear. "Be not afraid" is God's most common greeting in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. …. We don't have to trust sacred texts to believe that otherness produces fear. Throughout human history, communities and nations have regularly reacted with fear to the presence of the different - whether that difference is a result of ethnicity, religion, national identity or disability. The history of war is dominated by the fear of one group for another as is the history of religious intolerance. And when it comes to disability, especially inellectual disability, the track record is horrific. "Imbeciles," "idiots," and "morons," have been mockingly labeled, brutally killed, shuttered in prison-like institutions, and relegated to the back rooms of shame and disgust. The presence of those who seem wholly "other" among us has never been easy or smooth. It's not easy to "be not afraid."

- A friend wrote me today on this subject, responding to this article which I sent him a short while ago. (Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering). It was hard today to “be not afraid”. Letting go of anger opened my heart up to much hurt. It was a day of feeling pain, and letting that happen. I went for a walk with another friend and opened up. “You’ll know when it’s the right time to write him back,” he says quietly.