FEAR AGAIN | 2006-10-30
One of my most rewarding moments was when I told my grandnephew that when I was young I was scared of something, I forget what it was, that he knew made no sense. A three-year-old doesn't know how to extend a conversation. So he kept saying, over and over and over,
"You were SCARED, Uncle Bob?"
He couldn't get over it.
At that age, adults know EVERYTHING. It was the first time in his life that an adult had t0ld this child that he was afraid of something when he was a kid that other people would laugh at.
This gave me special satisfaction because I was the fifth of five children, almost five years younger than the last one. They all told me they were afraid of NOTHING, and I BELIEVED them.
Mr. Rogers sang a little song for his toddler audience, "You won't go down the drain." That hole in the bathtub that everything goes down looks little to us, but a small child has no such sense of proportion. He saw everything else go down the drain, so why shoudn't HE?
I will never cease admiring Mr. Rogers for knowing that, for EMPATHIZING with that.
When I was tiny we had an outhouse. That hole was HUGE to me. And what was UNDER me was horrible and horseflies were down there and also up around me. My family all thought that it was funny how sitting there terrorized me.
Now I live in a whole society that was raised by The Greatest Generation, who had no fear. I am surrounded by every variety of Christian who tells me he knows EXACTLY what the True Faith is. He tells me with a pretence of absolute certainty that he is Saved while others are headed for the Pit. But those "Christians" are far, far more afraid of death than I am.
All my life The Fearless Greatest Generation has warned me not to defy authority because I should be afraid of it.
They tell me they faced death without fear and only they can say what fear really is. But they have lived their lives in terror.
That was OK when the older CHILDREN in my family told me the same thing.
It is NOT OK when adults tell me the same crap today.