We need fear in our lives to protect us. Fear can also build up such high walls around us because anxiety keeps us within a limited zone that some consider comfortable. Some walls are there to keep us out for good reason; others are made to be stepped over before they become too high to climb. To take a chance can seem threatening but to not take the opportunity to step over that wall of fear can lead to a life of backtracking. Failure and even rejection is not the end of the world, unless we decide to make it so by not trying again to reach out or to grow in other areas of our lives. Like speaking before a group for the first time, or striking out to form a friendship with someone. The examples that can be used or varied, but all are calling us to step over that wall … hopefully the first of many.
Fear is good when it warns of us of real dangers, but it can also imprison us if it leads to unwarranted anxiety. Sometimes fear can be a call to keep going, instead of retreat. Wisdom knows the difference. Death to an old way of life can cause deep anxiety and trepidation, yet it need not deter us.
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
