Over the past several years, I helped facilitate discussions at the local Festival of Faiths about some of the difficulties our city is dealing with — related to immigration and refugees, the Ninth Street Divide, that sense of disconnection so many of us feel. This year’s festival, the 30th annual (beginning today and running through Friday, at the Kentucky Center), has a theme of Sacred Courage. And earlier this year, in collaboration with the Center for Interfaith Relations, which puts on the festival, we asked the group that answers our weekly questions this one:
When fear strikes, something I’d like to be able to do better is __________.
Spending time with what everybody said, I found myself nodding along to so much of it. And thinking about that theme of courage. Because courage isn’t about an absence of fear but rather an ability to — to borrow from the word cloud below — act despite fear.
I pulled together some of the words our group used the most while answering.
When fear strikes, we wish we could…
Our group has shared lots of fears and worries recently, and I gathered some of them to make another word cloud…
Current Fears and Worries
With these fears as a backdrop, here’s how several more of us answered that fill-in-the-blank question about what we wish we could do better when fear finds us. I was struck by how so many of us used the word neighbors, mentioned other people,while answering. “Go out and see my friends to talk about it together,” is how one of us put it. “Everything feels less scary when I can meet people face-to-face.”
When fear strikes, something I’d like to be able to do better is __________.
“Laugh.”
“Breathe.”
“Not wet my pants.”
“Comfort my wife better.”
“Contribute to my community by volunteering and checking in on my neighbors.”
“Support others. My neighbors and I have formed a text chain to alert folks about ICE in our very diverse neighborhood.”
“Remember I’m part of a supportive community. I think when we feel afraid it is easy to feel alone and isolated, but I have learned over the years that my community — my neighbors, my faith group, my colleagues — feel it too, and we can support each other.”
“Reflect on hope. I am reminded of Dr. Maya Angelou’s quote: ‘I come as one, but I stand as 10,000.’”
“Ground myself and connect — to other people, to my surroundings, to the generations behind and before me.”
“Help others who are more fearful or vulnerable.”
“Create art, talk strategy and find ways to help those most affected.”
“Control my heartrate.”
“Be grounded in my faith.”
“Act rather than freeze or fawn.”
“Allow myself to feel it. I tend to shut down, compartmentalize and hyper-focus on things that I can control when things that I can’t control scare me.”
“Accept and acknowledge my fear and move forward anyway.”
“Inspire my daughter. It’s a Sophie’s choice to me, between risking myself and her vs. doing nothing. I’m an impulsive person. But when you have a child, you have more to think about than yourself.”
“Not to get caught up in things that are not happening in Louisville.”
“To be better than I am — but I am tired.”
“Have a better-packed ‘go’ bag.”
“Be informed with facts as much as possible.”
“Turn off the news and immerse myself in nature.”
“Channel it productively. Sometimes we are afraid because, like the frog in the slowly heating water, we’ve realized something is not right, and we really need to listen to the fear. Sometimes we need to be brave and do the thing we are afraid of.”
“Stand up afraid. Speak up afraid.”
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And I wonder how you might answer: When fear strikes, what’s something you wish you could do better? Lemme know:josh@louisville.com
