In 2008, toward the end of a three-day retreat in Canterbury Cathedral for about 700 Episcopal and Anglican bishops from around the world, Archbishop Rowan Williams finished his brilliant presentation on love and grace, and then asked us to reach out to another. Find a partner you haven’t met before. Have a conversation. Build a relationship. He sent us off into an ecclesiastical mixer in an odd, and as it turned out, off-putting way: “Find somebody you are afraid of”. And with that, fear entered the Cathedral, and never left. A cloud of fear hung over that sacred space, and followed us to the nearby University of Kent campus where we met for the next two and a half weeks.
We already had a lot to deal with. There were stark differences among us around race, the economic disparity between our countries and churches, and theology – particularly as it related to human sexuality. Most of us were already nervous, because engaging in these conversations would require a lot of hard work, patience, deep listening, and honoring one another. Adding fear to the mix made it much more difficult, because it moved the interactions from a desire to learn from each other to a level of distrust that seeped into the beginning of nearly every interaction.
I don’t think Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams intended to spike the gathering with the introduction of fear. I think his was an unintentional throwaway line that tainted, for me anyway, the deep spiritual insight that led up to it. Fear distorts, fractures, and depending on the dose, can either upend relationships or destroy them.
In the past few months fear has been pumped into the American ecosystem on a daily, if not hourly basis. And people are feeling it – deeply and acutely. A bishop colleague told me that his ethnic churches are empty on Sunday mornings because parishioners are afraid to gather with the prospect of ICE agents hanging around just outside. A friend told me about a foreign born family in-law member, in America legally with a professional job placement, who is afraid to be in a car alone for fear of being pulled over and sent somewhere else. These stories of fear echo by the millions across the American landscape. They are real.They are disabling. And unlike Archbishop Williams throwaway line, the marketing of fear is intentional.
What is especially egregious about creating a culture of fear among immigrants who are here legally or illegally,(in more and more cases their legal status doesn’t matter), is that the cruelty and rapacious nature of the deportations and threatened deportations are designed to both stoke and placate the fear of those who have nothing to worry about. “True” Americans, the theory goes, are being protected from the ravages of people who are different. People are being taught to fear the other. And sad to say, it works. Throughout history the branding of fear has always worked.
For a period of time.
The first person that I can remember being truly afraid of was not a bully or someone from a different race or background, but a 6th grade classmate. Her name was Suzanne. She was frighteningly thin. She looked sick all the time.She walked very fast, was smart in class, and I don’t think she had friends. She may have had an eating disorder or some disabling illness. I didn’t know. I was 11. All I knew was that she scared me. I stayed away. I think we all did, afraid to catch whatever she had. She needed to remain “other.”
Embarrassing as it is to tell the story of my early fear, it is important for me – for all of us – to identify early moments of fear. How did it come about? Who reinforced it? How did I – or we – work through it, if we dared to try? Coming to terms with the origins of fear can help mitigate its paralyzing effects, especially when there are so many fear fomenters braying through all the ubiquitous streaming spaces that flood our daily lives.
Coming to terms with the fear – and then offering an antidote for it. One of the most effective antidotes I have found is the concept of ubuntu. A Zulu term from South Africa, ubuntu refers to the interrelatedness of one another. ‘I am because you are’ succinctly defines ubuntu. “A person is a person through another person” Bishop Desmond Tutu used to say, invoking ubuntu. When we see ourselves as a tapestry of humanity, in which we are all connected, it has the effect of reducing tribal impulses, rampant individualism, and the temptation to fear the “other” or to render them less human. We may be different, but we are not “other”.
The fear will inevitably surface, either through a throwaway line, or an intentional policy. We need to face the fear, fight the fear – and open ourselves up to the preciousness of ubuntu: I am because you are. It can help disable the fear – in ourselves and in the world.
