Fear, Faith, and "The Tale of Despereaux"

At the end of my book, Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor, and Chaos, I write about nine different postures for leaders/people to consider as they try to engage with what God may be up to in the world around them. Each posture involves a transition, a change, a movement from one place to another, recognizing that often the way we are postured either facilitates or inhibits participation with God and others. To get somewhere else we must do something else - something different than what has brought to the place we are.

One of the most critical postures I write about is a posture of trust.

"I have a strong sense that many Christians and most leaders have a hard time with trust these days. In our culture many Christians feel embattled and have taken on defensive postures believing their very survival is at stake. The tenor of religious dialogue generally, and Christian dialogue specifically, contributes to a sense of being under attack. Everyone is shooting at everyone. Friendly fire is killing more than enemy fire - that is, if we could decide on who our 'enemy' is beyond the most recent person who offends us...This toxic lack of trust, and the active posture of suspicion in the broader environment, has invaded many places close to home, including our local church communities. Leaders feel at odds with their congregations and struggle to build meaningful relationships. Parishioners feel at odds with their leaders and struggle to be vulnerable with them. While we would never openly admit this to anyone out loud, many of us do not trust God. It seems we believe God is passive, and the role of leaders and church and theology in the face of God's apparent passivity is to defend him from all challengers. It is as if we believe that God cannot defend himself - and after what we have witnessed on the cross of Christ, maybe there is something there that is worth paying attention to, something very sacred and important to be discovered." (Intuitive Leadership, 244)

The transition that I suggest as a means of changing/challenging our posture so that we can trust is a transition from defensiveness to creativity. I might have also suggested a movement from fear to faith. They are very similar. Either way, this need continues to be more and more critical to me as I observe the trajectory of much of what is happening in the world around us. It seems that so much of what happens in popular American Christian culture plays to people's fear - such that we become incapable of living in the way that Jesus modeled and his disciples embodied. People and ideas that challenge the status quo are to be feared and shunned. Truth must be defended. Faith moves from being a radical orientation of dependence on that which/Who is unseen and hoped for to a proscribed set of dogma that is held to with certainty and subsequently defended unquestioningly (at times even violently). And in the meantime, God has left the building. Or at least, I have observed this dynamic in play.

But what if you're not afraid? What if you are more excited than concerned? What if you sense hope on the horizon and in your heart and have to do something about it? What if you want to propose and play and create and engage? That is what gets me up in the morning.

Now, why do I write all that? Because I just watched a movie trailer for a film that is coming out based on one of my daughter's favorite books: Kate Dicamillo's Newberry Award winning children's book, The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup and a Spool of Thread. Watching the trailer for this movie stirred me up and reawakened the impulse that fueled me when I sat down to write about a posture of trust and moving from defensiveness to creativity, from fear to faith. Watch it and see what it stirs in you.

My favorite line? "Oh Despereaux, there are so many wonderful things in life to be afraid of if you just learn how scary they are." Fantastic.

Comments

[AnneDroid]

Great blog. (I've helped myself to a quotation from a post by a W.Bradshaw that you quote in an Oct 07 post - as I'm preaching on James 2:14-26 on Sunday.) This is an interesting post too and I liked the video clip. As I work in prisons I often think about why I don't feel afraid - I think I'm just "more excited than concerned" as you say.

[Stacy]

Great post and great book! I am so excited to hear they are making a movie. I am really challenged by your uncovering of our fears which are masked in defensiveness and the encouragement to move on to creativity. This is a much better motivator for getting up in the morning!

[Tim]

AnneDroid (great name) - I'm glad you like the blog. Thanks for posting. That Bradshaw quote is great isn't it. I preached through James last fall and used it as well. Grateful to hear about your work.

Stacy - Here's to getting up in the morning...I think if we knew we were facing the possibility of "possibility" each day it would reorient us in a way that could be profound.

[Jamie]

I love it. Thanks also for the suggestion of reading Failure of Nerve. I am coming to believe the Father wants me to be more compelled by the adventure of listening to the Spirit and less concerned about making a wrong turn. I know I have been paralyzed in the past by a fear of failure, now I am considering the idea that part of God's grace is the idea that I can't fail?