REsources for Living
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The other day my dog started doing something odd. Just as I was about to get into bed he shoved himself into the narrow space between the two banks of drawers that hold up my captain’s bed. Um…OK. He managed to get himself out again, and I turned off the light. Then I heard him rustling about in my closet. Which is very much not a walk-in closet. It’s narrow, and the floor is littered with shoes and luggage and what-have-you. But he managed to shove himself inside somehow. But why? Why would a dog choose to check under a bed and in the closet at bedtime? The only possible explanation I could think of was that he was checking for monsters. Having verified that all was well, he hopped up on the bed and went to sleep.
My dog’s odd protective foray reminded me of two things: 1) He’s an odd creature (a fact that I had never really forgotten) and 2) I’m actually no longer afraid of monsters under my bed or in my closet. Come to think of it, there are a wide variety of things that I’m not afraid of. I think spiders and snakes and bats are cool. I enjoy public speaking. When my daughter was younger she walked to school and to her friends’ houses without my being particularly concerned that she would be abducted. While I’m certainly aware of the potential dangers of international terrorism, it also isn’t really something that appears as a blip on my emotional radar.
Which is not to say that I in any way think of myself as a courageous person, or even someone who is not fearful. I am in no way adventurous. I can’t regale you with any tales of daring deeds or bold escapades—daring and bold are pretty much not in my nature. And if I don’t worry about spiders, I do fret the extinction of species and about climate change. I don’t concern myself with whether my daughter will be abducted, but I do worry about whether she will ever be fully employed.
So while there are a variety of things that fail to get my adrenaline pumping, I do really wonder how it is that people work up their courage to take on the really huge, terrifying things. What drove Malala Yousafzai to risk her life to advocate for education for women and girls? What pushed Greta Thunberg to become an international activist battling climate change? How is it that students at Stoneman Douglas High School managed to turn their devastating experience into a powerful movement for gun control? How is it that people who are seemingly without power—young people, people of color, people inside deeply oppressive systems—how do these folks rustle up the courage to speak and to act in the face of death threats or actual violence?
Of course, I can’t know the answer for any of these folks. But my best guess at understanding comes from the words of Audre Lorde:
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive
At some point the cost of remaining in the wholly justified fear of what threatens you becomes more painful than the reasonable fear of speaking out, fighting back. Death threats are not more terrifying than people who have actually shot at you. Crossing the ocean in a sailboat to attend a summit on climate change becomes an insignificant risk compared to climate catastrophe.
Perhaps the way into courage is through fully embracing fear, through admitting to the things that genuinely threaten us, that legitimately terrify us. Maybe we have to walk all the way into our grief and fear—all the way under the dusty bed and into the crowded closet—to find the motivation to change what scares us rather than
hiding from it. Even when the monsters are real and dangerous. Especially when the monsters are real and
dangerous.
That doesn’t really feel like good news to me. I am someone who would happily sidestep as much grief and fear as possible. In a world full of devastating problems, it’s certainly easier to turn away, to numb out, to seek out any form of distraction that will keep the feelings at bay. Which is why I look to heroes like these young people who are out to change the world. I need them to remind me that on the other side of fear is power, and the deep gladness that comes from shifting the world in whatever ways, large or small, offer hope and possibility and change for a brighter future.
- REsources for Living - December 1, 2020
- A Fond Goodbye - December 1, 2020
- REsources for Living - November 1, 2020
