I have always been blessed with an abundance of courage. Because I sometimes – well, often – stride in where others resist going, some would call my innate bravery foolhardiness. Thus gifted, it has been hard for me to understand the waves of fear that have washed over people since the terrorist attacks on Paris and Beirut. But I get it now. I understand – personally, intimately, viscerally – the way fear invades and threatens to take over one's life. I understand because recently in the middle of the night, an intruder kicked in the back door and entered our home.
We were almost asleep when two booms like thunder shook the house. In the moments it took us to realize what the sound was, a figure, backlit by the kitchen light we leave on for security, appeared in the doorway of our bedroom. I screamed in terror. Beside me, my husband John yelled. The figure froze, and then dashed away.
John leaped from our bed, following the intruder's path through our house. I heard the sound of a vehicle speeding down the alley beside our house. Trembling, I wrapped a quilt around me and followed my husband. He was in the kitchen, alone, stooping down to look at the broken deadbolt lock hanging from the doorjamb. Our home had been invaded.
"Surreal," was how my husband described the episode the next morning. Neither of us had been able to sleep much after the police officers left in the wee hours. The next morning, John went to a hardware store and returned with a new deadbolt, installed it, and left for work, sleep-deprived and still anxious. Until I began to write this, I was unable to do anything more than the simplest household tasks, my mind clouded with the night's trauma. And I did something I have never before felt compelled to do, even though I work from home, alone except for the dog: I turned on the "stay-at-home" alarm.
Within hours after the invasion, we were showered with sympathy, reassurances and contacts with family and friends thanks to my middle-of-the-night Facebook request for prayers. As the night falls once more, however, I can feel fear tightening my muscles and pressing on my emotions. It takes all the ragged threads of my strength not to give in.
Now I understand better why this vulnerability that people are feeling in the aftermath of the Paris and Beirut bombings has elicited so much negative reaction. We want to hide ourselves inside some kind of armor so that we are never that vulnerable again.
As it always has, fear pervades our world on many levels. It's what author Ta-Nehisi Coates meant this week when, receiving the National Book Award for his non-fiction work, "Between the World and Me," he spoke of his anguish at the death of his friend and of being unable to guarantee the safety of his son. It's what my black neighbors feel when they are stopped by law enforcement for no apparent reason. It's what my Muslim neighbors feel when armed protesters surround their mosque. It's what my white neighbors feel when they see immigrants and refugees as threats to their lives. It's what those who've given their lives to the institutional church fear when they see it crumbling around them.
As John Pavlovich has written so eloquently elsewhere, we Christians have become addicted to these fears, just as fear has shadowed my husband and me since our home was invaded. It is wrong to dismiss the fear we feel. It exists, and unless we learn to deal with it, its toxic effects can poison our lives permanently.
Yet even as my husband and I struggle to recover from our home's invasion, I am encouraged to see that people are facing down fear, both theirs and others'. I'm especially heartened by the number of United Methodist bishops who have issued pastoral letters declaring their support for Syrian refugees, and their rejection of demagoguery that would make demons of widows and orphans.
I am most glad that, in the aftermath of physical vulnerability, to find that John and I are cautious, but are refusing to submit to fear. The world might call our response crazy, but I believe it is the gift of faith.
In the Western branch of Christianity, we embark Nov. 29 on the season of Advent, the beginning of the Christian calendar and the time we look forward to the birth of Jesus at Christmas. For us Christians, the birth of Jesus to a human woman in the humblest of circumstances is God's overwhelming "No!" to fear. The first words of angels to shepherds, "Don't be afraid," testify to this message. The eternal "yes" to life rings out again each time we fight the fear that would consume us.
So yes, we were invaded, and in those moments we were terrified. Yes, we are emotionally wounded by the violation, and it will take us time to recover. But giving in to fear would mean that the intruder took from us our most precious possessions – our lives. These lives of ours already belong to Jesus Christ, who faced his own fear to show us the way to live eternally in the here and now through faith. As we pick up the pieces, the gift of our faith so fills us with spiritual abundance that it leaves no room for fear. And we are truly thankful.
Veteran religion journalist and certified spiritual director Cynthia B. Astle serves as coordinator of United Methodist Insight.