"Emotional Couch Potatoes"

          A bang against the window draws you out of a snooze. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. You bolt upright. A shadow dances outside the window. Is it the serial killer you read about in the paper?
      When fear kicks in very specific things begin to occur in our bodies. An almond-shaped area in the brain, the amygdala (uh-mig-dah-la) receives signals of the potential danger and begins to set off a series of reactions that will help us protect ourselves. Our breathing becomes rapid, our pulse increases, our hands may shake; our systems rev up. 

     Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Additional messages sent to the amygdala determine that the wavering image is only a branch. This time there's no need to bolt. The fear response is snuffed out and you return to sleep.

We all get the willies occasionally just like the brother and sister did in the Ghost-I Tree. Whether we share these moments or not, our amygdala's act up when we are startled into fear.

You've probably heard the classic story about the mother putting her small boy to bed one night during a bad thunderstorm. She was about to turn the light off when he asked in a trembling voice, "Mommy, will you stay with me all night?" Smiling, the mother gave him a warm, reassuring hug and said tenderly, "I can't dear. I have to sleep in Daddy's room." A silence followed, and then he spoke in a shaky voice: "The big sissy!"

 I can remember being a reasonably mature high school student volunteering to walk a quarter mile home after being duly frightened by the movie Psycho.   What a mistake.  I felt vulnerable and began walking faster, then running. I finally just flew. Nothing clouds thinking like fear. I knew I was no less safe than usual, but, somehow, after watching that woman being stabbed in the shower scene,  logic wasn't helpful. My amygdala must have been firing non-stop. By the time I reached home I was completely beside myself.  But, of course, as soon as I entered into the warmth and light of our familiar kitchen, I acted blasé and composed, so as not to draw anyone's attention.

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Fear is built in as a protective device, but it can also be problematic. Of all the emotions that pattern our behavior fear is the greatest trickster.  It's common to hide our own fears from others but even more insidiously, our own fears often hide from us, disguising themselves in many ways - as disdain, aloofness, humor, even courage. I think of the Back to the Future movies - in each one of them there is a pivotal scene in which the Michael J. Fox character is called a chicken.  Being called chicken is one thing he can't tolerate. The taunt appears to inspire him to bravery. But how many reckless daredevil acts have been tried just because someone was challenged publicly and couldn't bear to look frightened.

 Fear is troubling, too, because excessive or inappropriate fears can paralyze us, and do so without even our knowing. Before entering the ministry I spent a year trying to decide if I even wanted to and if it was practical.  A dream, believe it or not, revealed to me that I did want to enter the ministry very badly - and that fear - mainly fear, was holding me back. I hadn't a clue until the dream. I suspect that most personal fears come disguised.  For example, fear of failure can make you think you're disinterested in doing something even when you're dying to - you really want to meet new people or try that new skill but your subconscious makes up reasons not to, "$35 is too much", or, "I don't have the time," when, in reality  you are afraid.  But like me, you might not know it.

Fear of the unknown and fear of loss can stop our growing and warp our judgment, can warp the judgment of even groups of people  - be they congregations or countries.  I think back to our Welcoming Congregation Program.  Back in the mid-90's this congregation voted to take on a deliberate program  to educate ourselves about gays, lesbians and bisexual people and to welcome them here as an official policy, particularly because it was known there was likely no other church in the area that would welcome them in this way. At first the idea was resisted by a variety of people for a bunch of different reasons. At the time, homophobia was being floated by some as the most likely underlying reason anyone might oppose the program. The advantage of time has made it clear that a protective love of the church caused much of the hesitation and that fear of change, of losing the church as they knew it was too much to risk.  The church risked the change, and it did become more diverse, but the changes didn't hurt the "feel" of the church.  The special quality people feared losing, remained.  But at the time it was hard to separate the fears out from other issues so they could be evaluated and addressed.

There are certainly legitimate reasons not to do many things.  But we need to be careful that unreasonable or even irrational fears don't stop us when action would be a good thing.  Fear of that sort could turn us into emotional couch potatoes afraid to leave the house or try anything new.

 Fear can prevent us from acting when we should, and, conversely, it can also make us act out when we shouldn't and in ways we might not otherwise ordinarily. In relation to this I can help but think of the emotionally ill young man who died in a hail of bullets while standing in the pulpit of the West Brattleboro Unitarian Universalist Meetinghouse last year. Or the 6 year old that was shot by a classmate in Flint Michigan recently, who had found his uncle's gun.

Yesterday I found a message on my answering machine from a caller who identified herself  by first name only.  I don't know who she was, but she said she had noticed my sermon topic for today was fear and felt compelled to direct my attention to Bowling for Columbine, a movie about America's love for guns which is now playing in New Bedford. (I don't usually get anonymous tips to help me in my sermon writing!) I'd actually already seen this documentary film which examines America's love of guns. More people in America are shot each year than in any country in the world not at war. Film maker Michael Moore observes that Canada has a similar ratio of guns but very little gun violence, and he wonders why. Moore argues that Americans shoot each other in such great numbers due to a "culture of fear" that exists here.

 Psychologist Bonaro Overstreet is talking about fear at its worst when he says, "fear casts out intelligence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth…"[1]   Robert Frost in his poem One Hundred Collars wrote, "There's nothing I'm afraid of like scared people."

To a certain degree we've all been a scared people since 9/11. As a nation, our amygdalas are firing.  The administration quickly asked for and received passage of the Patriot Act which allows the CIA to spy on American citizens, permits authorities to detain noncitizens indefinitely, expands wiretap authorities and more. In November we passed the Homeland Security Act which created our Department of Homeland Security which again, extends surveillance powers and increases the information-gathering reach of the government.  As a frightened people we need to be careful.  As the Reverend William Sloane Coffin warns, "You can't think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth." I think of the words by writer Alan Paton, "Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.

Our roll-back of civil liberties, may, if we are not careful, be more damaging to our country in the long run than 9/11 itself.  Last June, at this year's General Assembly, civil liberties was voted as the study/action issue for the denomination. This means we feel civil liberties have become enough of a concern that we need to keep and eye on, and educate ourselves. Janet Walkden will be opening her home for a discussion of the civil liberties issue on January 19 so or church can participate in this process and share our thoughts with denomination.  I encourage you to attend.  Knowledge is a good antidote to fear.

Our foreign policy seems quite fear-driven at this time. Our government, in our name, since 9/11 has embarked upon a "War on Terrorism" making war, not only against Al Qaida in Afghanistan, but also against Iraq.  In spite of the fact that arms inspections have been granted as requested, and have found nothing, no smoking gun, the administration continues to push for war.

Psychologist Bonaro Overstreet wrote, decades ago, 

" Fear is part of our native equipment for staying alive. Its function is to alert us to real dangers.  Strangely, however, if it gets out of hand, it can involve us in constant self-defensive responses to fictional dangers, and thus condemn us to a living death.

When fear ceases to be the servant of our more constructive emotions, there is tragedy ahead - for the individual, for those who come under their influence, and for our society as a whole.  (Bonaro Overstreet)

Our challenge with regard to fear will always be to sort our fears out --  to keep our fears servant to our more constructive emotions. We need to be able to distinguish fear reactions that are helpful from those that are harmful.  We all have personal fears, and we are living in a culture of national fear that reinforces the potentially destructive kind of fear in each one of us.  How, then, do we maintain our balance?

I want to share with you some advice from Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk and peace activist who thinks the path we are taking is mistaken. But before I do, I would like to express my concern that, although he speaks out of deep religious conviction, in the current climate his words may be described as subversive and unpatriotic. This kind of reaction is the kind of "self-defensive response to fictional dangers" that Overstreet warns us against.  Thich Nhat Hanh is not a threat to democracy - whereas curbs against free speech in the name of democracy are. Let us try to keep our fear in check and our vision clear.

 Here is Thich Nhat Hanh:

"Strike against terror" is a misleading expression. What we are striking against is not the real cause or the root of terror. The object of our strike is still human life. We are sowing seeds of violence as we strike. Striking in this way we will only bring about more hatred and violence into the world. This is exactly what we do not want to do."

"Terror is in the human heart. We must remove this terror from the heart. Destroying the human heart, both physically and psychologically, is what we must absolutely avoid. The root of terrorism should be identified, so that it can be removed. The root of terrorism is misunderstanding, intolerance, hatred, revenge and hopelessness. This root cannot be located by the military. Bombs and missiles cannot reach it, let alone destroy it. Only with the practice of looking deeply can our insight reveal and identify this root. Only with the practice of deep listening and compassion can it be transformed and removed."[2]

Thich Nhat Hanh suggests a way for us to push back the fear.  He recommends deep listening and compassion which are the work of love. We want this from our leadership and we need to cultivate it within ourselves. Our responsive reading this morning said, "In fear we isolate ourselves, in love we connect with others. In fear we judge others, in love we seek justice. In fear we retreat, in love we reach out."  Let us make our very best effort to respond to our times with love.