BEN : For as children tremble . . . .

“For as children tremble and fear everything in the blind darkness,” writes Lucretius in On the Nature of Things, “so we in the light sometimes fear what is no more to be feared than the things children in the dark hold in terror and imagine will come true.”
      Fear is indeed woven into the fabric of human design. It is perhaps the weakness St. Paul wishes would be taken from him even as it serves as a constant reminder of God’s grace. Or perhaps it is the heart of the humiliation for St. Peter as he denies the One Who is being prepared to die. Fear does not reserve itself for the unholy and does not escape the holy either.
      What I am learning is that fear is an introduction to faith. We cannot trust what is not seen without a healthy amount of fear pushing us toward a direction that is undefined and unexplored. We are all moving in such a direction. Each day we live in anticipation of what is to come and in reflection upon what has been. It is in this uncetainty where the Rule provides a timeless discipline that faciliates our development into the life that was first breathed into us at the very beginning.
      A strange thing is taking place as I etch out my Rule with a fountain pen and moleskin parchment: the fears that are keeping me from moving forward are also the very fears that are becoming my salvation. These fear may well be the beginning of spiritual growth.
      What children do not know and what adults should have learned along the way is that those things that represent fear for us are also the beginnings of great things. Not great in the scale of achievement or prosperity. Rather, great in that they become the building blocks that give us the strength to see fear in its fullness — which is really salvation not yet complete.