Comments on: The Places that Scare You

By: claire bangasser

claire bangasser — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 21:11:14 +0000

I found Pema Chodrön’s book to be a great book. It teaches me to welcome those feelings that until then were not welcome, hence often suppressed, bounced back onto others, etc.

Nice to find your website.

By: Sue

Sue — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 01:30:47 +0000

Thank you Ken for your comments. I am so in this space now of purging long-held-but-not-passed-through emotions. It has been an ongoing process over the past few years and frankly, I am really tired of it. It hurts. And yet passing through out the other side – it’s true, it does bring freedom. I really appreciate what you say about us desiring to go vertical too soon. The things learnt in this place are invaluable (one of the most valuable at the moment being that I am not the emotion I am experiencing. To stand that little bit detached from it and say “I am not grief. I am just feeling grief” is a totally different situation and gives me comfort, makes me understand a little bit more about endurance, about being able to withstand many things.

By: Gary Snead

Gary Snead — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 22:02:17 +0000

Like the robbed man on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho who received a Samaritan’s care, I suffer 1/2 dead, 1/2 missing, looking to myself, away from Jesus, this darkness is immense. Looking to Jesus, sitting at his feet, seeing God, I am enthused, God breathes into me and I can be here, sharing my heart, soul, strength, mind, loving God and my neighbor.
Mysterium tremendum et fascinosum ( I don’t know if I am spelling the latin correctly) I understand to mean God is a mystery frightfully tremendous yet fascinating to the point of a curiosity impelling me to come to him, and in doing so, be with God and as Christ tells us, he is then in us as we are in him. Then all we see and face is not God and is not to be feared, not because it is not scary so much as because as many of you said, God is with us.
Thanks also for the additions to the book list, and Leslie, for the courageously honest window into your life.

By: Leslie

Leslie — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:27:31 +0000

I wonder if fearlessness is the peace that passes understanding? I think it may be. It’s that point of surrender – not of resignation, for that smacks somehow of forced acceptance – when we finally relax into our Father’s arms at the foot of the cross and agree to be carried through the dark and the storm, believing that all is well not because all IS well, but because we’re in God’s arms.

2009 has been the herald of tremendous loss for this family: our jobs, our home through foreclosure, our savings through the economic crash. It’s been a tremendous struggle full of fear, anger, grief and anxiety. Add 3 young adults all on the scary brink of independence and accountability to the mix and one understands the need for two tubes of medium brown hair color!

We had no choice about this scary place. It just came and all we could do was all we could do, which is just what we have done. It wasn’t enough as it turns out, at least towards saving or preserving our lifestyle, corresponding identity, and possessions. The only choice we ever really had was how to respond: with courage and faith or with anger and bitterness. Isn’t that really the only choice we ever have? Turn to Jesus or turn away?

The dark has turned out to be a very scary but very enlightened place. It has revealed in our fears all the things we loved more than God, all those idols that I’ve prayed daily the Lord would remove. Well, remove them He has and words can never tell how grateful I am for the dark, my powerlessness, and all this loss. As Paul said, it’s all really been gain and the fear is gone as I kneel at the cross.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 13:24:12 +0000

The spiritual author Robert Augustus Masters recently wrote on Twitter: “Get intimate with your pain. Instead of rising above it, move through it, even if you’re on your hands and knees.”
A lot of spirituality seems to try to go the vertical way too soon. It’s all about transcendence, emotions are described as an illusion or as kind of a hindrance.

As you put so well, it is not that easy to be there at the place of loving acceptance. It may well be necessary to judge or even to hate before we become able to love and forgive. If we try to love and forgive too soon, it becomes just another spiritual bypass.

Moving through difficult emotions – the stuff that scares us the most – is a process that takes courage, endurance and more time than we might like to spend on it. Most of the time, I like to run away. But it seems that on those rare occasions that I do not, when I actually try to meet what scares me, it is one small step towards freedom. And it’s also heart-opening. So it’s worth changing our habit of running away in the opposite direction and closing our heart. I guess meeting our pain and fear can also be a step towards God.

By: Brother Don

Brother Don — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 05:00:45 +0000

FDR got it right in his first inaugural address.

By: Sue

Sue — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:40:03 +0000

I let anger overwhelm my fear of going in and so now I have lost an opportunity. How saddening that is.

I recommend The Courage to Write. It’s one of those books that I have read about three times and I can’t really tell you what it’s about – some books you read sink so deep that conscious recollection of them is hard. Weird

Great post, Carl. May you go with the book idea that is ringing for you most, regardless of the fears.