Truths about fear

Truths about fear

My brother—who is a carpenter like Jesus—was working on a roof once when it began to rain, turning the surface into a slippery slide, and he starting going down head-first. He doesn’t remember much about the fall but his co-worker saw him crab a cord, which righted him mid-air. He still hit the ground, breaking his T12 vertebra, but the good news is he lived to tell the tale and wasn’t paralyzed.

Fear caused my brother to reach for that cord. Fear is a natural human instinct with the amazing ability to save us from some close calls. We couldn’t survive without fear. It’s also true that we are not created to live in fear. Living in fear is often a coping mechanism developed over time, and it can severely affect our health and well-being.

My brother went back to working on roofs and I’m sure he takes extra special care. The fact that he doesn’t remember falling is normal. God made our bodies such that we rarely recall pain or trauma. We remember stories about events that were painful or traumatic but—and this is very good news—we don’t have to relive the horror.

During Advent and Christmas we will once again hear the nativity stories, and some of us will recall the slaughter of the innocents that accompanied Jesus’ birth. Throughout his life and even when he was dying Jesus experienced fear. That’s because he was human. But Jesus chose not to live in fear. He embodied truth, forgiveness, justice, and a love that takes the sting out of death. The good news is we live to tell the tale and are not paralyzed.

The house where Jesus was born

The house where Jesus was born

We know the story inside and out: In order to participate in a census Joseph and Mary, who are pregnant, travel from Nazareth to the city of David, Bethlehem, because Joseph is a descendant of the house and family of David. While there the time comes for Mary to deliver her child, and she gives birth to her firstborn, a son, whom she wraps in swaddling clothes and lays in a manager, because there is …

God knows how long this scene has been consigned to “no room,” “a stable-place,” “a lowly cattle shed,” according to some current hymns. And we’ve seen it re-enacted, year after year, with individuals dressed in bathrobes knocking on the door of the “inn” only to hear the “innkeeper” tell the tired and weary travelers, “Sorry, there are no more vacancies.” At this point the “innkeeper’s wife” usually appears, as either an antagonistic fish-wife (one skit describes her as “a tough, rough-talking ‘broad’”) or a hard-working, compassionate midwife. After a brief squabble between the innkeeper and his wife they agree to let the visibly pregnant and desperate couple stay out in the “barn.” At least they’ll have a roof over their heads, lots of straw for the birthing, and a manger—an animal feeding trough—for a crib. Just like the Bible says, right?!

The Greek word in the second chapter of Luke that is traditionally translated as “inn” in most of our English-language Bibles is kataluma which means, literally, “to put down,” as in “to unyoke” beasts of burden, “to rest” on a journey, or “to put up” for the night. Kataluma is also in the twenty-second chapter of Luke, when Jesus instructs the disciples to make arrangements for his final meal with them: They are to go to a certain house and say to the owner that their teacher asks, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” The house owner will then show them a big upper room where they are to get things ready. Thus kataluma refers to guest space in a home, not an “inn” (Greek pando) like that in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:34), much less a “hotel” in the modern sense of rented accommodations.

What does this mean for the birth of Jesus, then, if Mary lays her child in a manger, because there is no more room in the guest room?

It means Jesus is born in a traditional Middle Eastern village home that is overflowing with so many guests they all cannot be lodged upstairs. Far from being rejected by strangers, Joseph and Mary are welcomed most certainly by kinfolk and join other relatives who have journeyed to their hometown for the occasion.

Like every other poor Palestinian child, Jesus is born in the lower level of a single-room dwelling that shelters livestock as well as several generations of a lively family. One raised end is reserved for the elder members, while younger members and children spread out from there and utilize the roof space—open or enclosed. The lower end is where the animals are housed overnight and fed from mangers. The house is cleaned daily from top to bottom, from the human living quarters down to the lowly animal quarters. The birth of babies—humans as well as animals—takes place in the area of the house reserved for such bodily functions, where there is clean straw and water, where a feeding crib doubles as a sleeping crib, and with plenty of female relatives to assist with the birth.

A warm welcome home portrays a very different nativity scene than the cold lonely place out back. The former more accurately reflects the Code of Hospitality proclaimed throughout scripture, while the latter is a myth built on a mistranslation. And there is no “stable” in either story of Jesus’ birth.

Is this myth simply a mistake? Or do we need to read rejection into the birth of Christ? Like some of us in the USA need our presidents to be from humble beginnings and born in a log cabin?

After visiting parts of Europe—from which my ancestors fled in order to escape religious persecution, poverty, famine, military inscription, servitude, imprisonment—and after tracing parts of the Oregon Trail—along which my ancestors dirtied the water, finished off the wild game, scared away the herds, and brought small pox, guns, and territorial instincts—I have to admit that I am an Adult Child of People Who Left. People who kept on moving, leaving behind whatever made them unhappy or unfulfilled. I come from a tribe who need to feel rejected in order to believe they’ve picked themselves up by their bootstraps, started their lives from scratch and made something of themselves, staked their claim—on land that wasn’t for claiming in the first place.

What does this mean for me, then, to lay down my ancestral myth of rejection and to own up to the truth of God’s hospitality?

Obama bread

Obama bread

While on vacation last week in Dublin, the capital city of the republic of Ireland, I was touring the aisles of a local grocery store when I spotted a loaf of bread “Created to Celebrate the Visit of Barack Obama to Ireland.” Made by the Soul Bakery, in Dublin, this “Hi-Fibre Fruit Healthy Irish Bread Fit For A President” had a label listing the ingredients and so I bought it.

As my edible souvenir made its way through security in the Dublin Airport, I saw in the food court an exhibition of photographs highlighting various aspects of Irish life. Amid pictures of school children, people working, and horse races, there were photos, taken in May 2011, of the American President and the First Lady drinking dark pints of Guinness—Michelle appeared to be tolerating hers—and of the President addressing masses of people in the heart of Dublin.

Our Irish guide on our city walking tour described just how significant President Obama’s visit had been to the citizens of this small nation. It was more than the euphoria of welcoming the first black President of the United States and the pride of having another Irish person in the White House—Obama’s maternal heritage includes Ireland, which led to the nickname “O’bama” and the joke that O’bama is the greatest black Irish export after Guinness. It was the fact that Irish people could relate to African-Americans, both of whom suffered oppression and discrimination in what for some of our ancestors was the Promised Land but which for all those individuals enslaved or indentured proved to be just another Pharaonic Egypt.

President Obama’s visit also helped to demonstrate that peace is here to stay in Ireland. The recent peace, still in its infancy, is being tested by economic hard times and the occasional attempts by one or more persons to kill it. For centuries Ireland has been to Protestants and Catholics what the Middle East is to Jews and Muslims—a locus of systemic injustice and dehumanizing hatred which has turned neighborhood playgrounds into battlegrounds. While Harriet Tubman was the Moses of her people, President Barack Obama embodies the spirit of Miriam who rallied the masses to leave behind what is comfortably familiar but mere survival and to venture into the great unknown which holds the possibility of every body thriving.

What will it take for me and for us women to stop being our own worst enemies and start having our own and each other’s interests at heart? To quit pretending we like each other—which is not the point—and to love ourselves, care for our bodies in simple healthy ways, support one another through difficult choices and hard times, and honor our many differences?

What will it take for males to break the yoke of expectations placed on you from the moment your gender is identified? To lay down once and for all the burden of always appearing strong and never showing weakness, hiding your feelings and not crying, mocking intimacy and being shamed of loving yourself? To simply be yourself—which is way more than to “be a man”—and encourage one other, especially in a group, to be at peace with who God created each of you to be?

Can we in households and communities in overly-developed areas of the world enjoy living with less? Less things and more sharing? Smaller landholdings and larger communal spaces? Decreased carbon-based energy and increased human body energy? Shrinking our personal incomes and expanding the economies of people in under-developed parts of the world? Not just for a year or so but from here on out?

Can we imagine a new whole world?

Let’s learn from the Irish and create a recipe that combines wholewheat flour stone ground from soft wheat grain without any bleaching agents, oats high in fiber, hardy rye flour and flaked malted grains with a crunchy texture, soya bran rich with protein, brown linseed or flaxseed which is one of the oldest crops on earth and was cultivated in ancient North Africa, sesame seeds which are the oldest oilseed crop and able to survive drought, sunflower seeds full of vitamins and fiber, poppy seeds which have been harvested by various civilizations for thousands of years, good ole baking powder and baking soda and salt, an egg laid by one of many hens who happily live in the shade and protection of trees preserved and developed by the Woodland Trust here in the UK, buttermilk homemade with organic milk from contented cows, fair-trade or locally-sourced honey, nutritious oil, sultanas or golden raisins which originated from ancient Turkey, and clean water:

OBAMA BREAD

Grease one regular loaf pan and preheat oven 190 C or 375 F.

Note: A cup is a tad less than 250 ml or about the size of a teacup.

In a small bowl, soak 1/2 cup sultanas (golden raisins) in 1/2 cup hot water and set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together:

1 and 1/2 cups wholewheat flour

1/2 cup fine oats (or oat bran)

3 Tablespoons malt flour

2 Tablespoons soya bran

1 Tablespoon brown linseeds (flaxseeds)

1 Tablespoon sesame seeds

1 Tablespoon sunflower seeds (de-shelled)

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

In a medium bowl, whisk together:

1 egg

2/3 cup buttermilk

1/3 cup honey

1/4 cup oil

Pour the medium bowl mixture and the small bowl of sultanas and water into the large bowl and whisk together just until evenly mixed—do not over-mix.

Put batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 190 C or 375 F for 35 to 40 minutes, until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

This quick soda bread recipe was adapted (and taste-tested) by Lindsay Louise Biddle from the “Hi-Fibre Fruit Healthy Irish Bread Fit For A President” (made with yeast) by the Soul Bakery, in Dublin, Ireland, “Created to Celebrate the Visit of Barack Obama to Ireland.”