What makes *You* afraid?

I am deeply saddened at the news that someone whose opinion I respect has been diagnosed with cancer, and in my view is gravely ill. This came to my attention last night while getting my daily injection of boundless optimism from the nightly news. Anderson Cooper was interviewing him. He looked ghastly and well into a term of chemotherapy. There was a short segment on his latest book, and conversation around peripheral issues, but soon the subject turned to death and religion.

Being a controversial and vocal atheist, (or antitheist) a term he coined, he maintained that unless he becomes delusional in the course of his treatment and illness, he will not change his views on the existance of God. Cooper pressed him several times on the issue saying that death bed conversions are more the norm. He conceded that the delusion was possible, and the perception of God inside the delusion might occur.

On several websites I found the talk mostly centered around faith and disbelief, not any appreciable concern for his well being. Curiously, those who identified as atheists or agnostics were the ones who expressed sympathy for his condition and hoped for his recovery. I found it a sad commentary on the lengths people of supposed “religious convictions” will go to proselytize people into compliance with their dogma. Then, I got dizzy and fell off my high horse when I found myself moving into the same pattern of thinking. I had a tendency to apply my concepts of reality to life.

It made me uneasy that he couldn't or wouldn't find solace in my notion of the independence of the human spirit or soul, or that he might simply continue in a different way. The thought of death being the end made me afraid. This got me thinking about fear and what people will do when frightened. How will he process his fear? On a more personal level, how will I process mine? Will he be able to have those conversations? At some point it will be beyond debate. Will he be like Houdini and attempt communication after death? I don't think he will. I believe he will be surprised at the transition. Whether he believes, or I believe, is largely irrelevant. Whatever happens will happen. He will be aware of it or not. A more immediate question is how to deal with the fear.

How much of what I do is a response to fear? When I'm sick, why do I go to a doctor? Left to it's own devices, my body will strive to heal itself. Perhaps it is an unconscious effort to shorten my misery, or to avoid learning a lesson the universe offers me. Clearly we are afraid. Walking in absolute darkness, the next step might be the abyss. The strength or folly is the choice to march on, or remain paralyzed in the hope of a coming dawn. I wonder why I have found so many things to be frightened of. So many what-ifs jostling each other with their pokey little elbows. What if nobody likes me? What if tomorrow I'm all alone? What if all the sibilant crawlings I choose to believe of myself are true? What will people think? What if tomorrow never comes? How much of this fear is spiritual malady, and why doesn't my spirit, like my body, strive to heal itself?

Fear is unknowing. Fear is knowing with certainty. Fear is the malarial mosquito humming to you eerily in the dark. Fear is the hammer fist of the tsunami that will leave you bloated and rotting on the hill just up the beach. Right now, in this moment, I can live forever. No thing can hurt me. The source of all that I am has given me this gift beyond my understanding. Whatever happens will happen. I will be aware of it or not.

May you find your moment.