fear leads to anger

I already missed the star wars saga and one of the characters I truly like is Yoda with his brand of English which many now call Yoda-Speak or Yodish. Try this for example, the Chosen One, the boy may be. Nevertheless, grave danger I fear in his training; or try this, Named must your fear be, before banish it you can. You must have also remembered the misgivings of Yoda in accepting and training Anakin to become a Jedi knight. Yoda said, Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.
Fear brings anger and anger breeds hate and hate brings suffering. There is so much truth in this statement for indeed when one is fearful, one becomes angry and this anger coming from that fear breeds hatred and from hatred comes a lot of suffering.
I hate dogs not for anything but because I am afraid of them. I was bitten once by a dog I tried to feed, and I never learned to climb a tree not until dogs ran after me. My hatred came from anger, and the anger stemmed from my fear dogs, and this fear would lead me to suffering and a lot of inconvenience. I remember one time when I was assigned in the cathedral, whenever I answer a sick call the family is always forewarned by the office to keep their dogs when I come otherwise the priest who will be coming will turn away and go back to the convent without meeting the sick. And tell you, I did that several times, until they learned to keep the dogs away. Fear brings anger and anger breeds hate and hate brings suffering.


It is of no surprise therefore that Jesus throughout his life will be repeating time and again this now familiar call – do not be afraid. Have no fear. Why? because fear leads to anger and anger brings hatred and hatred leads one to a lot of suffering.
Today we ask what are we afraid of – what is Jesus referring to in your life when he says do not be afraid?
In peaceful Norway what made a person set a huge bomb in the middle of the city, what made him kill young men and women gathering in a camp? It did not really start as anger or hatred. It started rather as fear - a fear that muslims will overran Christian Europe. This fear of one person then led to the suffering of so many. The rest now history, and those who died are now statistics in the list of victims of acts of terrorism.
In families today most separations among spouses started as a fear - the fear of losing a love one to another, bringing about animosity, suspicion, anger, then hatred in the relationship. The irony is this, the fear of losing becomes now the very cause of the lost. Racism started as fear which ends in hatred and violence. People who hate so much today, started out because of their many fears.
Again we ask ourselves what are we afraid of – what is Jesus referring to in your life when he says, do not be afraid? SO what do we do now when we are afraid?
When I was a little boy the grown-ups would usually take us to the beach, but whenever such announcements were made my reaction was quiet mixed. It was a mixed feeling of excitement and reluctance. Well everybody here understands why a little boy gets excited whenever grown-ups decide to take them to the beach. But there was also reluctance then on my part. Actually the reluctance is only a few meters long in the form of an old rickety bridge. The beach from our home is a walking distance of a kilometer and a half passing farms and several houses. But before arriving at the beach we have to cross this old bridge whose wooden slats were broken in several places. I was then too big to be carried and also big enough to understand that getting scared in front of one’s peers is worst than falling off that bridge. So I would always pretend that I was not afraid and walk gingerly towards the other side. Some boys would make fun of me by shaking the bridge. But I would hold on until I reached the other side making a long sigh of relief afterwards. But some of us then discovered how to overcome this fear. All one has to do is to look straight ahead. No matter how tempted one is to look down, the technique is to walk and look straight ahead, keep one’s eyes on the goal and it would always work.
This technique in crossing old rickety bridges could very well work in life. Keep your sight on the vision, keep your sight on the goal and everything will just turn out fine. But when you start getting nervous and succumb to the temptation of looking down, you will be in for a rough crossing.
Today let us ask the Lord to help us keep our sight on Jesus, to keep us from looking down and be discouraged.
Lord teach us to trust, teach us to conquer our fears and help us clear our doubts. Help us to remain focus on our goal. Never permit us to waver and doubt less we sink. Put back trust into our hearts.