Shame is fucked. I cannot think of a more unproductive place to be. Shaming never ever does the work that I often think it tricks itself into believing its doing. Shaming never makes me feel energized or empowered. It sinks me into an abyss of self-loathing which makes it almost impossible to move. The irony of shame is that I believe its often used as an attempt to move people from a-->b. Like, you are dumb. You should be smart. (This is a callous and simplistic example, but useful and popular, hence I'll use it to illustrate the point) The point of naming "dumb" is often to shame a person into learning in a way that will produce/move-toward "smart." The problem is that name calling makes a person feel like crap. Who wants to do the work of learning when you are just trying to pick yourself up off the floor?
I just had a really complex conversation with someone about a lot of stuff, but part of the conversation had to do with the role of fear in my life. This person is close to me, a person I trust deeply and is, therefore, able to name the amount of anxiety I carry in day to day way. And I'll be real: I carry a lot of anxiety. But it has proliferated, exorbitantly, in the last 3 years because of 2 major things: 1) becoming a pastor and 2) becoming a mother. Both of those changes in the last 3 years have resulted in me caring for people in a much more direct way. As in, I am responsible for people in ways I never was before. I have access to people's bodies/hearts/grief/stories in ways I never did before. My daughter is almost entirely dependent on me for her survival. I am more responsible and more in love than ever before.
And so I wonder: is it possible to love, like love responsibly, without carrying anxiety around? Can you truly value people in this life without having dimensions of fear accompany that valuing?
In the back of my head I hear something echoing: "perfect love casts out fear." The most perfect loves I have known have been in pastoring and mothering. And yet I carry all kinds of fear in the reality of those loves. I carry anxiety about all that my congregants face: their economic vulnerability in unemployment-stricken Michigan, their body frailty in the presence of cancer, their spiritual tenderness when there are conflicts in the congregation over theology, money, values, etc. I carry anxiety in the love I have for my colleagues: anxiety that they are experiencing too much pressure in the impossibilities of pastoring, anxiety about whether or not they are getting enough family time, anxiety about whether or not I am showing up for them in ways that are equitable in the face of all the work we share. I carry anxiety about my daughter's future. She has a vagina. Enough said. This planet is facing ecological crisis like never before; will there be a planet healthy enough to sustain her life and the life of her children? Is she receiving the amounts of intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual stimulation she needs to develop into the person G-d has crafted her to be? These are just a few of the anxieties I carry with me every single day. Just a few. There are thousands.
So I contemplate this thing about perfect love casting out fear and I feel shame. But why? Because I'm not living into the mandates of my religion with perfection? Is the call to a life of no-fear even achievable? Like I cannot envision loving these people or communities in any way that wouldn't include taking harm/injury/sustainability into account. So is fear/anxiety the presence of something bad? Or has our world been so conditioned to shame affect, female/maternal ways of being, that we cannot recognize that anxiety is often an outgrowth of deep connection/relationality?
I have to admit that I am asking a lot of these questions out of self-defense. Perhaps I am just trying to justify all the fear I carry so as to not do the hard work of liberating myself from that fear. I also have to admit that part of these conversations (the one I had earlier, the one Christianity has about fear/love, and the larger conversation in our culture about the nature of a 'good life') feel totally gendered, particularly around the capacity to 'control' ones feelings/inner world. I've never ever ever had another womyn/mother criticize me for carrying too much fear; in fact, the anxiety we share as womyn is often a connecting point. So how do gender dynamics/embodiments and social conditionings of other kinds (race, class, nationality, religion, body type, culture) have to do with attitudes toward the presence of anxiety?
Because shame is present and I'm not entirely sure of my motives right now, I want to open this struggle into a wider arena, into the gracious space of communal contemplation. So will you enter in with me?
What is the role of fear in the life of one who is willing to risk love?
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