What it means to be fearless is different for everyone. I can’t comment on anyone else’s journey because I don’t walk in their shoes. Generally though, we should all be able to recognize the feckless trend of violence that has a hold of our world today. Do we bolster our weapons and military and take a stand? My question is this: stand for what? Is it for our country, our faith, our children, our future? Whatever that stand is, I’m sure it will manifest differently for each of us. So here is what it means to me.

When I look at my life in hindsight, I see a journey that I never could have predicted. And yet at each moment I recognize now, a pattern and a rhythm that suggests a benevolent and guiding hand. At the time of these often life changing moments, I wasn’t always aware of the guiding had of God…quite often I was frozen with fear and pissed off. Yet, somehow by the grace of God I came through them, none too worse for wear, which on a good day I am proud of. What does that mean? Yay me… this faith thing works?

I’ve been on a quest to be more fearless for awhile, and as my circuitous journey would have it, I feel like I’ve begun to figure it out. Beyond living in a contemplative monastery in the desert, the National Council of Churches in Soviet Russia, working among the greatest saints and sinners of the Catholic church and then through law, of the secular world, living in house of the most brilliant and yet completely dense men of my life, none of those experiences compare to facing the fears within my own psyche.

Until we can look deep within to see the true source of our fear, and I can say with confidence it is not Isis, or Gay marriage, or guns or a host of other things that keep us awake at night, we will never rise above it. I know what my fear is, the ability to fulfill the destiny God has for me, and I also know how the hand of God has been always with me. So there is no excuse to not walk freely among saints and sinners alike, with only the armor of  God. Fear makes us weak…think about that.