There is no room for the scared inside the circle of the sacred. What is holy is free of fear.
It's odd how the words sacred and scared sound so much alike. With the exchange of but two letters, scared becomes its opposite just as fear is the opposite of Love. And the only effective treatment for fear is Love.
One message that comes from many in our country is that a great way to deal with fear is to keep a gun nearby. After all, the American Constitution, written in the wake of the Revolutionary War by men raised in primitive surroundings, protects our right to bear arms.
My father, raised in part on his grandfather's farm, raised me with guns. He taught me to respect them rather then to be scared by them. Hunting was a sacred ritual in his eyes. His grandfather, a veteran of the Civil War, had used guns to kill for food as well as to protect himself. Guns were a good thing, I was taught.
I shot my first rabbit with a blast from my .410 gauge shotgun at a distance of eighty feet (my proud father stepped it off.) But, as a kid, I was appalled to discover, upon approaching my victim, that the rabbit was still alive. A blow from the butt of my father's gun ended that.
I knew I was supposed to be tough as well as proud so I accepted Dad's congratulations. Inside, I felt sickened that I had killed not for food, but for fun.
So often we, as caregivers, pick the wrong weapons to deal with our life and our fears. Doctors over treat because they are scared of lawsuits. Many nurses follow rules slavishly even if adherence is damaging to loving care. When they do this, they act from fear and defeat the sacred.,
Saint Thomas Beckett, who fought for the church against the power of King Henry II, is reported to have said, "We are all God's fools." I saw that recently when I decided to nurture the memory of the gun-loving days of my childhood. For the first time since I wa a kid, I went to a local shooting range, rented a 9 mm pistol, and went through a box of shells firing at a target. Somehow, it seemed like it would be fun to shoot, this time, not at an animal but at a paper rectangle.
What struck me was the looks on the faces of the others I saw there. I didn't see men comforted by guns. Instead, I saw fear in their eyes. Scared, they go to guns for comfort and thus push back the sacred from their lives.
What fools we are to think that violence can protect us or that science is our only weapon to treat illness. Jesus carried no weapon but Love. Why do we think we need any more than that?
-Rev. Erie Chapman
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a reply to Victoria Facey Cancel reply