Miraculous Fullness

[Fear - IX]

My friend Nathaniel draws a helpful picture of fear, I think.

Read what he says closely, slowly.

"Fear arises in the presence of an absence. It is not the absence in and of itself that provokes fear . . . but the presence of the absence. Lack, brokenness, finitude press in upon us: an invisible weight making itself darkly known and hotly felt, driving us by its varied shadows to flee its most terrible claws.”

When we become aware of our limitations and shortcomings, fear arises. We come face to face with our weakness.

Paradoxically, in that weakness, there is a strength; in that absence, there is Divine presence.

Nathaniel says it beautifully: “[God] plunges into the uttermost depths, where “darkness” is the “only companion” (Ps 88:18). . . [and] I discover that it is no longer I who am clinging to his promises, but that by his promises, he is grasping hold of me.”

We fear our own emptiness, a void, a lack, a wound . . . and yet somehow, someway, therein resides a miraculous fullness (that holds us).