Olive Crest United Methodist Church
7180 North 60th Street
Omaha, Nebraska 68152

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Rev. Debra Tompsett-Welch

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The Spiritual Life

February 2003

Love in the Midst of Fear

By Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

We have been hearing a lot of fear messages lately. If I turn on the news I come away frustrated and angry. I talk to so many people, and so many feel anxious. But February is also the month when we celebrate Valentine's Day, when we lift up Eros or Romantic, Passionate Love as a gift from God. But love in all it different forms has never been separate from fear. It has been in conflict with it from the very beginning. We can see it even in the origin of Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day is named after St. Valentine (or Valentinus), a Christian Pastor martyred for acting out his love in the world. (If you would like to know more, see the story at the end of my article.)

Acts of love, by their very nature come into conflict with acts of fear. You can see this very clearly in dating and marriage. If you never have the courage to talk to the young woman, love never has the chance to grow. Later loving someone can often takes even more courage. You regularly have to ask for things that are important to you and you never know for sure you won’t be turned down. And you have to go back and do it again and again, never knowing. You can’t do this just when it feels right, you have to do it as an act of courage. The reward is deeper intimacy and a love that nourishes your soul, as well as your body and mind. But you can’t do it without courage. If you give in to fear, you stop asking, you stop adapting and growing and just drift away, feeling empty and betrayed. While your partner may be guilty of part of that betrayal, the first betrayal was to yourself when you gave in to fear and stopped asking, and trying to grow into you true Christ like self.

Not all of your wants are needs, and many of your desires, if met would not be good for you or your partner. It is important to evaluate and discern amongst the infinite desires we have, what are truly important and realistically achievable. I am not going to be an astronaut, but that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy adventure and discovery. I am not going to compete in the Olympics, yet I can still learn to love and enjoy my body in movement. These are examples of accepting limits, but keeping clear the dream and value they represent. If you ask your loved one if you can schedule an evening alone, and it gets interrupted, you have to have the courage to ask for another one, and they have to have the courage to try again.

Loving another means taking risks, and getting hurt. Not more often, I think than a single life, or a life isolated from others, but the fear is much clearer because of the commitments you have made that you may not run away from the pain. You have to stay and work on it and try and find a mutual way that is good for you both.

In our United Methodist Hymnal we have a song called, "When Love Is Found," by Brian Wren, 1978, page 643. It has a poetic blueprint of living a loving life together:

But there is hope and help in the midst of this, sometimes mind-numbing fear. God is not going to abandon you if you make a mistake, and as long as you are trying to do the right thing and act lovingly to everyone involved, God can still do something with what is there. While we hear on the television of so much fear, and so many powers in our world are invested in making us afraid, I think true courage can be seen in asking your wife to go to a marriage encounter weekend, or your husband for a hug or to sit with you and hold your hand.

It is good that we celebrate these tremendous acts of courage, which are done daily by millions of couples and parents all over this world, with every pulse of a beating heart. The act of reaching out in love, accepting love, and returning love, completes the circle that God breathed life into when God said, “It is good.” And doing this love, even in the midst of fear, finally conquers fear in the only way that creates enduring victory. For “perfect love drives out fear,” and this is what we all need, to be freed from fear. Drive back the fear, work on perfecting your love every day. If you work on being more loving, you will be doing the work of God and building the kingdom that will have no end. Thank you for being part of my family and helping me remember to work on loving and being loved. May we together commit to this heroic work.

-- Your brother in Christ, Rev. Michael Lee Burgess

APPENDIX:

“Valentine's Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia.

"The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. They did not have coed classes or have other opportunities to meet each other. One exception was the custom during the festival of Lupercalia, of the young men drawing girl’s names from huge urns. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and they would be partners for the duration of the festival with that girl. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

"Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his army. He thought it was because Roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius II cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. Saint Valentine was a priest and he and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples. For this Saint Valentine was arrested and condemned to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 269 A.D. Legend also says that St. Valentine left a farewell note for the jailer's daughter, who had become his friend, and signed it "From Your Valentine". In 496 A.D. Pope Gelasius set aside February 14 to honor St. Valentine. Saint Valentine became the patron saint of epilepsy; having suffered from it in life. Saint Valentine also became the patron saint of lovers as the church assimilated the fertility festival Lupercalia into their calendar.”

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