Fear is the Lock

At the back of certain kinds of success is the fear, not of failure, but of less success. In Atlantis, where the Priests of the White have held sway for fifty years and more, the loss of even one small district out of the Eighty is occasion for breast-beating (or chest-thumping, which is even more distasteful). Accordingly, as with all normal humans, the fear of a negative sensation has led the Priesthood to find better ways of reducing the likelihood of such.

As we learnt in the Halls of Training, in the Priesthood of Learning, there are four ways of supplying motive (I shall not say 'motivate' here):

• reward — supplying what is desired when the subject meets positive criteria
• punishment — supplying what is undesired when the subject meets negative criteria
• withholding reward — not supplying what is desired when the subject meets negative criteria
• withholding punishment — not supplying what is undesired when the subject meets positive criteria

It is always good to teach people such things so that they know how they might be manipulated. It is clear that the situation that I outlined at the beginning of this post is one based on fear of not having enough success, and being punished for it in terms of loss of ego, and perhaps sense of entitlement and/or privilege.

Till this day, amused outsider that I am, I have failed to see how increasing the size of authority blocs helps bring better representation and flexibility to those under authority. It is like saying that putting more generals in one room makes their armies work better, even though all the generals were chosen to think the same way. I've seen this in the Citadel of the Wyverns before, and those who have passed through its portals in the last few years will know what I mean.

I remember sitting at a meeting in which I said the f-word. Immediately, the Boss pounced on it. "What? Who is frightened? We are not frightened! What do you mean?!"

I was amazed at the response. I had meant that the general population might not be as sanguine about new directions as we were. And then it clicked: he was genuinely afraid and angry that I had apparently noticed it. Ho ho. Such is life.

It's all about fear. And you can smell the metallic, acidic tang of it in the air at certain times. Those times are beginning again. I shall need more Earl Grey tea.

Psalm 130: A Fearsome Forgiveness

The nature of forgiveness is often taken for granted. But forgiveness can be a fearsome thing, and that's the oft-neglected point of the 130th Psalm.

Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD.
Lord, hear my voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?
But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared.
I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Let Israel hope in the LORD: for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.
And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.

The key is in the fourth verse, which can be translated as, "But there is forgiveness with you, and therefore you are feared." How odd, you might think; how do we parse this line?

The thing is that the power to forgive is like the defence of vulnerability. It is a potent engine of change. There is no opposing it, since it isn't an aggressive weapon. Over time, I've learnt a lot about powerful things that aren't weapons, and they're all good – and they are all fearsome as well. Nevertheless, the yearning in this psalm is palpable; the hope overrides the fear, the promise of redemption may yet be granted, the morning is on its way.

Psalm 128: Establishing The Dream

Today's reading is the 128th Psalm. Building on the previous psalms, it reassures us that the future we built will yet come to pass: that we will indeed receive the fruits of our labour and see the establishment of the holy city, in whatever form we hoped for.

Blessed is every one that feareth the LORD; that walketh in his ways.
For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.
Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.
Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the LORD.
The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life.
Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel.

It is reassurance based on one thing though: that these blessings accrue to those who have an abiding respect and fear of the Lord of Hosts. What form does this fear take? Why do we fear? Is it an unreasoning terror or the sinister horror of the dark? The answers to these questions about fear come in the next few psalms.

Fear Is The Key

One of the most interesting verses in the Bible, in the context of fear (and in particular, the fear of God), is Psalm 130:4. It says that God is feared because there is forgiveness with Him.

That's interesting because of what is implied. In almost all texts of that era, gods are feared because they are mighty, vengeful, violent and final in their judgement. There are parts of the Bible which say such things about the God of Israel as well. But this particular chapter stands out because of its novel description of fear. The chapter is all about redemption and hope in the promise of unfailing love. And therefore are You feared.

My father often says, if there's a therefore, ask yourself what it is there for.

It is there because the writer feels that some kind of logic (theologic?) makes fear consistent with the idea that God is forgiving and unfailing in His ability to love. At first glance, this seems rather unlikely to us. Most of us think of love and forgiveness as things which no normal person would fear. But I think I have an answer.

My answer to the riddle is this: people fear what they do not understand, people fear absolutes, people fear things greater than they are in any respect. Take something as mundane as a classical singer. A person who finds himself standing next to a world-class tenor would feel apprehensive about singing anything, even in a karaoke lounge. And it need not be such a large gap in proficiency, competency, acuity, capacity, or virtue. Even a small gap, perceived as large enough, causes apprehension. What more an infinitely large gap?

A God who can forgive anything should He so desire shows such a gap in one aspect. That one aspect alone is enough to inspire fear in a person who can apprehend the existence of such a gap. It is equivalent to an ant recognizing in a sudden enlightening moment how much bigger a rhino is, and how easy it is for that rhino to accidentally or deliberately crush any number of ants.

It was in such a moment that I realised how much a person who is not afraid of being vulnerable can paradoxically be a threat to another person. People who have no fear are feared by those who rely on fear; as Nimzovich said, "The threat of execution is more powerful than the execution of threat." And the odd thing is that if you love someone very much, or if you are loved very much, there will (since we are all human and imperfect) be some episodes of intense fear. Yes, perfect love casts out fear, but in all of common humanity there is no such thing to be found.

Fear is the key. It is not death that is the final frontier, but fear.

=====

There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
T S Eliot, The Waste Land, 25-30

Intimidating

Just before midnight, someone I appreciate very much told me that I was once a 'rather intimidating individual'. That person no longer feels that way in such a negative sense. This occasioned a moment of reflection. Why, and how?

The word 'intimidating' means 'inspiring of fear', from the Latin timeo - to fear. It literally means 'to put fear into'. It isn't quite flattering, although further inquiry absolves me from being a source of true phobia. The Good Book says that perfect love drives out fear; this would seem to imply that fear is an unhealthy emotion between people who are supposed to have an agapean relationship - whether in one direction or both. The same verse links fear to punishment; this implies that if I were intimidating, it would be because of my capacity as someone in authority.

In this last capacity, I confess I believe that the ability to inspire fear is an important gift. From our enlightened and rational post-modern vantage, we view fear as an unnecessary impediment to civilisation, a shadowplay of ancient superstitions and primordial fantasies into which we regress under stress. But I believe that fear is no impediment; our overweaning sense of self is a far greater burden. The same people who tell us that the universe dwarfs us into obscurity will also tell us that we should have a large sense of the grandeur of humanity. The two are compatible only as a last-ditch defence against atheistic insignificance. For the odd thing is that it is a sense of the fear of God which actually tells us how valuable we are.

Fearing the impersonal universe is nothing. Fearing a person is to understand something about the nature of self and of intelligence and of society. Fearing a personal God is to understand how mighty the things of the spirit are, and how great we are in our smallness, that we can apprehend the Almighty at all. In a purely physical universe, scale is scale, size is truth. In a metaphysical universe, scale is irrelevant and being is all.

Which leads me back to the person who once felt intimidated, and no longer does. It is a mature relationship of minds and hearts which takes away the element of fear. Moses spoke to God as a man speaks with his friend - and he risked much in that relationship, but feared nothing in it. It is my dearest wish that I might be able to intimidate when necessary, but that it will never become gratuitous to me, and never an obstacle to genuine friendship.

To you who inspired these thoughts, my thanks. I know that you have mentioned my 'force of personality', and others have complained about other elements of my nature. It was never my desire to inspire overmuch fear, but to guide with a firm hand; this time of reflection will help me do that.

The Greater Trumps: (24) The Star

The Tower is lost, its rubble far away. But while the landscape is at first sight bleak and sparsely populated, there is a young lady filling and emptying her chalices at a pool beneath the starlight. And what a star it is! Serene and beautiful, it lights up the bleak landscape, softening its features instead of highlighting its contrasts. It seems to say that no matter how despairing the mood of the land, there is yet hope and beauty.

The symbol of the Star is almost always Hope, whether the little extra that helps or the great hope which brings one through the time of disaster. Although sometimes, rarely, the Star brings an air of uncertainty as people look into the murky future in the faint light, there is really nothing to fear. People being people however, they will fear the unknown. But that isn't the concern of the Star.

=====

The classic hymn by Phillips Brooks, O Little Town Of Bethlehem, written in memory of his horseback ride from Jerusalem to Bethlehem in 1865, best conveys the sense of hope and the slightly unsettled emotions of those exposed to its strength. The first stanza says:

O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.

It never fails to send a thrill down my spine to hear these words sung in the cool echoing dimness of a night-time service.