good fear, bad fear
a meditation on distinguishing between them
I came across this quote1 the other day and realized it held together a couple ideas I had kept separate in my mind.
The right fear is linked with hope… the wrong fear is linked with despair.
— Blaise Pascal
if you don’t feel fear or experience pain, this post might not be for you2.
fear is not bad. you might say it’s not something we were born with. but fear from experience of pain is wisdom. to be fearful of touching fire because you’ve burned your hand is wisdom.
fear is a good tutor, and a bad governor. pain can teach us, but seeing the whole world and our lives through the lens of fear can be debilitating, and literally life-taking.
we learn that fire burns, but then we use it properly to warm ourselves in the winter. something that can cause pain can also sustain life.
there is a place for proper fear, but not as a master.
I’ve often wondered at this strange dynamic when I find myself fearfully looking over my hopes and dreams for the coming year.
why should I be afraid now, embarking on a new adventure?
aren’t these some of my innermost longings?
and I have reminded myself of this lived mystery—that some of the most wonderful things we’ve been a part of have been accompanied by fear, only we didn’t allow the fear to control us but lived with courage despite our fears.
the first steps of a dream coming into reality are assailed by thoughts of every dreadful possibility. never am I more aware of every anxiety breathing down my neck than in those initial moments. but this is has become routine—so why am I still surprised?!
maybe I am dense.
or maybe all of life is to remember and reawaken to the truth.
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we are invited to take heart3, to be of good courage4! we must not allow our bad fears to set the frame around our life. the view that bad fear presents is small, it is familiar, and it is secure. a prison is the same.
Pascal suggests that this wrong fear is accompanied by despair. if you are familiar with it, then you probably still need a reminder.
this kind of fear suggests a bad end to every hope:
every attempt will end in disappointment.
every relationship is just waiting to pinch you off like an unflushable turd.
your betrayer is at the door!
these are real fears. or rather, they are informed by a cruel reality. Chip Dodd said recently, “There is no such thing as fear of the future, only a fear of recurrence.” once betrayed we don’t find it as easy to give our hearts to others. once stung we don’t so easily appreciate the honeybee.
but the protected, walled-off heart is an imprisoned heart.
perhaps the imprisoned heart, that has suffered much, can only venture back into the goodness of the light by small measures of courage.
if you have ever stood beside the Grand Canyon, or something in the natural world that made you feel small, then you know the feeling of awe5. it is a reminder of your relatively small place on earth. it is a reminder of your one, little life. this is mortality. it is good to rightly number our days6.
this sense of awe is akin to honor, and is akin to the “fear of Yahweh” mentioned in the scriptures.
it is not foolish to feel a sense of fear and awe when you recognize your relative vaporous presence on the earth. it is not foolish to have a sense of humility rise up in you when you think of much of Laurentia being submerged7 beneath the ocean untold thousands of years ago and realize that you stand on an ancient seabed.
this is a good fear, or a rightly-oriented fear. it is a relationship with the true nature of reality, when so much of modernity wants our attention elsewhere (often so that we will buy what it is selling).
but what is essential when we rightly number our days?
aren’t our priorities shifted when we’re faced with this kind of fear?
I believe this is the right kind of fear—to be humbled by our mortality, and to recognize in our smallness that we are sought by a transcendent God.
we will be rightly-aligned with the fears and anxieties our lives present to us when we calibrate them and orient them according to the Creator of all things, who upholds them all, and in mercy loves us.
All that is changing in this changeful world,
know that it is enveloped by him who is the Lord of all things.
-from Isha Upanishad (translated by Rabindranath Tagore)
our weak hands filled with the good gifts of God (or at the very least, with his company)—this is the fear linked with hope.
if God is for us, who can be against us? does it even matter, in light of the company of God? well, sure it does. pain is pain. fear is no small thing. but it is smaller than him who upholds all things.
so draw your attention towards him, and take heart!
Q: do you believe in good fear? why or why not?
also, next week I’m planning to share a couple of the new poems. I am seeking someone to help me adapt the digital book to a physical layout (yes, a book). let me know if you know anyone!
thanks for being here. I write weekly sharing poetry, songs, musings, thoughts on creative life, and hopefully some encouragement… my first collection of poetry, Snowmelt to Roots, is available in my shop, (or on Amazon). and my music is available here.
show in Madison, WI on Friday; Tulsa, OK, Fruita, CO & Idaho Springs, CO in September, Raleigh, NC in November. others soon here.
peace,
Z
from his book Pensées, here is the full quote: Fear: not that which comes from believing in God, but from doubting whether or not he exists. The right fear comes from faith, false fear from doubt; the right fear is linked with hope, because it is born of faith and one hopes in the God in whom one believes; the wrong fear is linked with despair, because one fears the God in whom one has not put one's faith. Some fear to lose him, others to find him.
lol?
from Joshua 1: Have I not instructed you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
the video of this skeeeeetchy path in Spain is maybe slightly more on the “terror” side of awe