I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear’s path, and only I will remain.~ From Frank Herbert’s, Dune and the Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error… Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us… By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
~ 1 John 4
Oh beloved, it is true. We must look for the truth. And we must come to a place where we are no longer afraid to allow a fact to exist. We must come to the end of judging others that do not conform to our wishes that they
worship us
agree with us
think we are right
or even treat us with a modicum of respect.
There is a deeper need for each of us, if we are to believe that we really do live in Love for G_d and for others. We need to move beyond our wish that others be punished for being rude to us. We need to quit worrying about being “bullied” and we also definitely need to give up on worrying that we are going to lose face – or even be punished for not complying with others.
And… there is a bit of a trick to all of this. Because in the stress of conflict, it is tempting to do things that throw everything one way or another (think of the old adage: “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”).
This fool of a writer spent some months many years ago in a therapeutic environment to grow into a person who could live free of his former dependence on chemicals and lust and fear. And in that place, a wise man spoke of the need to be able to hear the truth in something – even when it is mostly wrong.
It is called the 90 / 10 rule.
Yes, when someone is 90% wrong about something they are confronting us with, they are mostly wrong. And the part which is wrong is something we can safely dismiss – if we do it in a way that honors the rest of the package.
Because, when someone hits us with an accusation or something that is mostly wrong, it also means that they are at least a little bit right. This is the hard part. Am I willing to hear it? Am I allowing it to penetrate, even if the gold i am being handed is wrapped in garbage?
Because again, if i am willing, something wonderful is made available to me. No, it is not just the hard truth that i might need to hear. What i am can receive, if i am willing is freedom from something that i have been hoping (and so have you) to escape my entire life: fear.
And, i get something even better.
Can we see it? If i am really willing to listen to everyone who is yelling at me, or cutting me down, or whatever – i am given the opportunity to see that the person lashing out at me is usually (or at least often) very afraid in their own right.
And in seeing the person in front of me as someone who is like me in so many ways, i no longer need to fear them or judge them. i can, instead, simply Love them. i can begin to care more about helping them get set free from their fears and need to control others, that caring about what they are going to do to me.
So, are you feeling the fear of relationship? Maybe it is not what someone else is doing to you. Maybe, just maybe, it is your unwillingness to look for the bits of gold in the garbage they are tossing your way. Tonight is your night beloved. Time to listen.
