Tag Archives: fear

A Prayer for Fear of Flying

28 Wednesday Feb 2018

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God of the seas and lands and skies
Today I am soaring in the air to my destination
Excited for my adventures at the end of this flight…

But…

As you well know, I have a fear of flying.
Bumps along the way concern me.
Are we ok? I ponder this in my mind-
And sometimes I ask the flight attendant.

What is that noise? Is that normal?

We are so high up!

I wish I had more control…

Oh, the turbulence will come if I fly often
And just like life, none of us can avoid it.
Roll with it, I say to myself,
But the nerves in my gut are screaming with fear.

God who soars with me,
Give me the courage to keep flying.
May my anxiety rest as the sky’s potholes keep the aircraft hopping.
May I learn to release control to you and he universe,
And may my adventures upon landing be ones where I see your presence.
Amen.

Lakeside

09 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by in Poetry, Pop

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This is a poem I wrote in November 2009.

I peer into a lake so deep –
A pool of despair I cannot touch.
I stay on land, the hardened shell.
It’s safe to be on water’s shores
Or so it seems from horror’s view. 
For if I were to leap right in –
Would I drown? Could I swim?
Would I swirl and twirl below
And reach the bottom, never to rise?
And if I were to wade right in,
A toe submerged, and then one more
Until a foot, a leg in deep.
Would I feel the chills beneath?
Wrinkled fingertips, shedding skin.

Yet on this seashore, lakeside day
I stare at ponds of fear once more.
Its waves are threatening those of us
On grounds that seems so steadfast, firm.

Thus I could stand on water’s shores
And find my doom from inertia’s call.
For thinking that this ground’s secure
I’ll find demise in idle’s arms.

I rise on earth, it’s strong below
Yet not for me to stay too long.
I jump towards the sparkling pool –
A pool of fear, I thought before.
My body finds it’s womb below
As water encircles every piece of skin.
Yet, spiraling to bottom not mine.
I rise to top, begin to swim –
The pond is mine! I’ve tamed the tide.

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On Being a Lily of the Field

20 Monday Feb 2017

Posted by in Life, Pop

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water-lilies-bud-pond-green-99548.jpegI’ve always been the type of person who worries excessively.  This has always been part of my personality from the time I was a small child, and making drastic changes to such an embedded character trait takes time.

I go about my daily business worrying about how well I accomplish things and if I will have all the resources I need for the future.  I worry about the well-being of those I love and what will happen in the future to all of us.  I worry about small things and large things alike.

So when I read a text like Matthew 6:25-34, I want to laugh.  “God, you’re trying to tell me that I shouldn’t worry.  Easier said than done.  Releasing the worry won’t be happening here!”

And then I am faced once again with surgery.  I’ve tried everything I can to avoid surgery, but I must undergo the procedure once again.  For a while, I worried about having to endure this operation once more and did what I could do to avoid it, but there was little I could do.  I need to have it.

I will be on the surgical table in the very near future, so worry clouds my mind.  There is nothing that I can do once I lie down to have surgery except pray, believing that God knows what I will need and care for me in ways that will strengthen my well-being.

During the procedure, I know that I will be like a lily of the field—unable to care for myself in that period of time.  I will be enduring a period in which I am just “being” instead of “doing.”  My dependence will be on God and those working with God to bring about my health.

Most of us do not want to be like lilies of the field.  We want control, and we want solutions right now.  But now and again, life happens, and our time to be like flowers in a field arrives. We come and go with the winds.  We allow the rains to wash upon us.  Neither we can control.  And God wants us to embrace this time so that we can find our well-being again soon.

So I ask for God to take care of me while I am like a lily.  I ask God to heal me so that I can work hard once healing happens.  And like Reinhold Niebuhr’s Serenity Prayer, I ask God to help me always figure out what I can control and what I need to give to God.

This post will be in St. Paul UCC’s March 2017 messenger.