fear

fear has been front and center for me lately, so much so that i preached about it in december. i guess that's why last night i was caught by a repeat segment of ira glass' this american life that excerpted fears of your life (vols i and ii) by michael bernard loggins, a guy who decided to confront his fears by listing them all, from the pedestrian fears of bats, hospitals, foghorns, killer whales and toys that come on without touching them, to the the more nuanced fears of authority and punishment and, one of my favorites, no. 85: "fear that if you put too much of toilet paper in the toilet bowl it will run over and get all over the floor and on you and on someone else too; it would leak from upstairs to the next floor below." a few weeks back i got so weirded out by all the stuff i was afraid of that i, too, resigned myself to just writing my fears in this little black moleskin book i carry around in my back pocket. come to find out, i tend to fear, inter alia: heart failure, somehow turning my daughter away from faith in christ, esophogeal cancer, tunnels, ministry w/o all the answers, disappointing my wife, and having everyone find out i'm a fraud and that i fake my way through every day with smoke and mirrors. i pray all the time that i can practice what i preached and internalize promises like 1 john 4.18 and 2 tim 1.7. all too often, i fear, i can't.