Dear Steele: Sometimes I am afraid of the dark. I woke up to use the bathroom this morning and the sound of the wind rustling in the trees frightened me. I was gripped by a fear that sent my heart racing and a shot of tension throughout my entire body. I stood there squatting over the toilet and the pee wouldn’t stop flowing. It just kept pouring and pouring, then trickling and trickling, without end. The solitude and stillness of the moment made the sounds even more acute. I had my eyes closed and even though the darkness inside of me heightened my fear, I preferred that to the darkness of the unknown outside.
I kept wondering about the death I have planned for myself. They say we choose everything about ourselves before we are even born, including how and when we are going to die. I wonder if it’s going to be a robbery while I’m walking down the street, or sleeping in my bed. I wonder if it’s going to be a shark attack while I’m swimming in the ocean in a state of euphoria. I wonder if it’s going to be a plane crash on a flight home. I wonder if it’s going to be a car accident while I’m walking down the street. I wonder if I’ll choke on a mango seed, or get breast cancer and find out too late.
It’s amazing how we can be gripped by fear at the most unexpected times. We have so many nonsensical fears. Like the fear of failure, the fear of loss, the fear of rejection, the fear of being a disappointment, the fear of being not good enough, the fear of death, the fear of damnation, the fear of God. Most times when we are afraid, our lives are not even at risk or under threat. What we fear is simply a concept of our imagination; a fairytale; a myth. Little do we believe, the process by which we conjured up the fear, we could use to expunge it from its existence.
I wish I could witness the moments in my history when I developed all of my nonsensical fears. Children are usually so fearless until someone writes fear onto their blank slates. It’s amazing how we are trained to fear God from such a germinal age. They say when adults teach children a seemingly logical concept, children usually only perceive the underlying message. As children, when we learn to fear God, we don’t learn to be in awe of Him, we don’t learn to reverence Him; we learn to be afraid of His wrath and His judgment. It’s not just about God either; God becomes a symbol for our parents and practically all other forms of authority.
We develop an epistemology of fear: our way of being and knowing and understanding becomes based on all of these nonsensical fears. We let fear control our lives and we become slaves to the illusion of control. It’s like religion, and capitalism and all the other isms. Fear keeps us subjugated to the western system of success. Fear makes us settle for the drudgery of life in the rat race. Fear numbs our consciousness to the existence of our God-selves, the creative forces inside of us. Fear has us relinquish our power to the church, to the government, to the saviour of the world, to anyone other than our selves.
I’d like a translation of the Bible that converts practically every use of the word fear into love. I gave it a test run. (Click here for extended list of verses to test run for yourself.)
- “Gather the people together, men and women, and children, and thy stranger that is within thy gates, that they may hear, and that they may learn, and [love] the Lord your God.” (Deuteronomy 31:12)
- “The secret of the Lord is with them that [love] him.” (Psalm 25:14)
- “O [love] the Lord, ye his saints: for there is no want to them that [love] him.” (Psalm 34:9)
- “The [love] of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” (Proverbs 1:7)
- “By humility and the [love] of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life.” (Proverb 22:4)
- “Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the [love] of God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1)
Imagine if this was the greatest mistranslation of the past few millennia. Imagine if we lived out of love rather than fear. Imagine if we lived in reverence of life rather than fear of death. Imagine if we believed that God gave us the spirit of love and creation and consciousness, not the spirit of fear. Imagine if we believed: “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.” (John 4:18).