FEAR

This is what stands in our way: fear.

To avoid loss, I accumulate things.
To avoid falling, I attain height.
To avoid failure, I strive for achievement.

I have things.  I fear loss.

I have status.  I fear falling.

I have success.  I fear failing.

I fear loss, falling, failing, because I believe I am weighed and judged by forces outside myself; others' eyes, ears, and concepts of taste.  I am the things they see, the respect they afford me, the results I can give them.  My life becomes fear, arbitrated by forces outside myself.  I forget what I look like without accessories.  I forget what I am naked and alone.  

Yet, deep inside, I know I cannot trust a mirror.  The mirror is only ever a reflection and not the real thing.  I can never know myself by looking at a reflection.  I can only ever get an outline, and a sense of color-something distorted and partially true.  The weight and judgement from others never actually satisfies the question-is this what I look like?  Is this what I am?

If I do not know what I look like, and if I do not know what I am, what can I lose?  From where can I fall?  What depends upon me that can fail?  Until I decide to know myself in truth, I will be living in fear.

I will have no faith in my relationships-as no one will be relating to me, only to an image I cast.  I will have no assurance-as I will never allow myself to face the world without money and a place.  I will not sing-as someone else has told me that my songs aren't selling this year.

So, a paradox: I fear a life without faithfulness, trust and community if I try to express my self; yet a life without faithfulness, trust and community is what I have if I do not express my self.

The singer has to decide, simply, one day, to overcome her fear.  Sometimes, the notes land just right.  Sometime, she gets laughed off the stage.  Sometimes she loses, falls and fails, but not always, and never for long.  She learns that she lives through a loss, a failure and a fall.   It is hard to know.  The only true thing is she can never be a singer at all unless she joins the choir.