Lindsay L. O'Connor

Fear is (not) a liar
By Lindsay L. O’Connor

I used to try to divorce myself from inconvenient feelings
that seemed to:
- stand in the way of my goals
- threaten my connection with people I loved or depended on
- make me uncomfortable.

Those poor dears!
They cowered in the dark, 
shoved down, covered up,
sealed tight by shame, guilt, 
and anxiety.

Do you know, after a while,
those seals were the only emotions 
I could access regularly,
while the others
clamored for attention below,
unseen, unnamed, untended.

If one began to escape,
familiar voices trom the old tapes
tried to set them straight
in a confusing mashup of 
scripture taken out of context
and a heaping dose of good ol’
white western Protestant male capitalistic bootstraps mentality,
replacing Jesus by placing Logic, Order, Reason, Power, Hierarchy, and Upward Mobility on the throne.

Our worship song—
the literal song we sang as we worshipped white Jesus—
said that fear was a liar.
I thought maybe if I declared it with enough passion,
that Liar, confronted with the Truth, might scramble back to the pit of hell from whence it came (allegedly).

One time, in prayer,
I had the gift of a vision of Jesus
laughing easily
while all my worries ran amok
around him like little children.
He snatched them up
and held them on his hips, 
like any good mother would do,
full of affection & tenderness for all these little ones as we stood there, trying to talk but distracted by their boisterous ruckus.

"I will tend to all these little ones,"
Jesus said,
"but first, I want to tend to you."

Mother God,
personified as Jesus with all of my inconvenient feelings and cares beloved, hoisted onto his hips,
bathed me in unconditional love,
connecting with me in the deeper place, even as She modeled tender love, compassion, and affection 
for all the dear little troublemakers
that settle down when I show them a bit of compassionate attention.

I’ve started listening to them,
and do you know,
not one of them has ever lied to me.
Not a single one.
They tell the truth of how I’m experiencing reality,
or at least, my perception of it.

They tug at my sleeve
or the hem of my dress 
and remind me to slow down
and be with myself for a bit.

When I squat down 
and meet them at eye level,
reassuring them they’re safe to tell me what they need me to know,
they share their wisdom 
and we work together to find the thread of love in the present moment
that together, 
we can follow, wherever Love leads.

Then, just like mother God showed me,
I hoist them up onto my hips
and bring them along with me
until they wiggle themselves free,
feet on the ground,
ready to run and play
again.