In the 1950’s a popular book was titled, “Fear Strikes Out”. It was an autobiography of a major league baseball player, Jim Piersall, who struggled both privately and publicly with mental health issues. (The book was made into a movie, with Karl Malden playing Piersall’s father) After taking a time out to deal with his mental issues, Piersall had many more years as a successful, if still colorful, player.
We live in an age of great fear. Many fears are emphasized over and over by media and politicians alike. We fear terrorism, immigrants, the ending of democracy, global warming, inflation, and on goes the list. These fears then are compounded with some of our own personal fears of health, relationships, and family. What fears could you add to the list?
An honest appraisal of human history need not go very deeply into history to discover there has never been a time free of fear. Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and psychologist, a survivor of a holocaust camp, and one who lost many family members in such camps, said about fear, “Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of”. When I read this quote, I was reminded of something similar from former Tonight Show Host, the late Johnny Carson, “Choose your enemies carefully, You become them.”
I have found both quotes to be true far too often in both my life and in the lives near and far of those I have witnessed over the years. All kinds of walls are built to protect us from some danger. In so doing as we hide in bitterness, fear, and anger behind our walls, we act and react and behave like those of whom we are afraid.
Christians ought to know better. “Fear not” says Jesus. It is not that there was nothing to fear in Jesus’ day nor that being a follower of Jesus insulates us from fear or protects us from fearful things happening to us. It is that fear can paralyze and change us into something other than a called follower and servant of Jesus.
I wonder if the reverse of Frankl and Carson’s quotes for the Christian might be something like, “Love makes true that which one hopes?” or “Chose your neighbors carefully, you will be cared in turn by them?” You can play around with either of these and no doubt improve on them, but the point is, if we want people to be a certain way, perhaps as followers of Jesus in behooves us to treat them in particular Christian ways.
Yes, there no doubt is a cost in such Christian treatment. Are we not called to pick up a cross and follow? That is, it seems a part of our living and serving as Jesus would have us do assumes some cost on our part. We may certainly fear such a cross, but do we fear it so much we spend more time protecting than we do serving? Do we spend more time insulating than engaging?
In some ways the Civil Rights walks and protests in the 1950’s and 1960’s were about even more than Civil Rights. They were excellent examples of a willingness to face clubs, firehoses, and police dogs as acts of love for the betterment of many. I have actually seen some scars of both black and white marchers in those days. They are scars not worn with great hubris, but instead worn with an attitude of having done what needed to be done.
Jim Piersall struggled with some mental issues his entire life, yet because of his willingness to admit to himself and his fans that mentally he was ill, Piersall was able to return to his life and go on in a way he could not have had he not been so forthright.
What might you and I do to make our fears strike out?