fear – Page 5

Go out in the world and live

March 28, 2011 by Billy Coffey 17 Comments

Taylor Lane Anderson, a fellow Virginian, became last Monday the first known American to have died in Japan’s earthquake and tsunami. The twenty-four-year-old had spent the last two and a half years fulfilling what had become her dream—to teach English in Japan.

The story in the newspaper was accompanied by a photo of the street on which she was last seen. It was that eerie time just after the earthquake and before the wave hit. Taylor was riding her bicycle home from an elementary school in the city of Ishinoma-ki.

Use your imagination, and you will see houses and storefronts and perhaps children playing on the street corners. You will see that strange combination of resistance and joy that defines human life everywhere, that sort that makes you feel melancholy but happy to be alive.

That’s not the picture the photograph displays, however. All you see is death and destruction.

Though I do my best not to, all I can think of is her last thoughts as that wall of water came rushing toward her. I like to think it was fast. I like to think it was over before she knew it was upon her and that she didn’t suffer.

Derek Kannemeyer is a French and English teacher at St. Catherine’s, the school which Taylor once attended. In the article, he described his former student’s philosophy of life this way:

“You’ve got to go out in the world and live.”

This is the first time I’ve written about the events in Japan. I’ve wanted to ever since it happened, but I just…couldn’t. There are a great many things in this world meant to be written about by better writers than I, and what happened in Japan is one of those things. It raises questions in me about the things I believe and why I believe them. I’ve done my fair share of questioning God and shaking my fist at Him.

You should know better, I tell Him. Why didn’t You do something?

People smarter than me have been asking that question for a very, very long time. I suppose they always will.

Me, I have no answers. There is a lot in Christianity that must be accepted on faith. It is a rock you can break yourself against, that can tear you to pieces, unless you realize there are answers only God can know and you never will.

I still struggle with that.

But today I am thinking of Taylor Lane Anderson, whose life was cut short by shaking earth and raging ocean, but who still chased and managed to grab hold of her dreams. Her death was a sad tragedy, but knowing she died doing what she loved somehow takes a bit of the sting away. In the end, death that comes out of fulfilling our purpose is something to which we should all aspire.

I still question God. I doubt neither His existence nor His love, but I do His ways. They are higher than my ways, Isaiah said, as His thoughts are higher than my thoughts. I believe that. But believing that also brings a mixture of calm and fear, and I don’t believe I’m the only one to feel such things.

It is a scary time to be alive. There just seems to be so much going on—so much bad. There are days when I feel as though a black cloud hangs over this world, rumbling and swirling and ready to dump catastrophe upon us all. It’s easy to wake up in the morning and wonder, “What’s next?”

I’m sure I’ll wonder what’s next again, sure I’ll look up hoping to see the light and instead see that black, swirling cloud. When I do, I’m going to remember Taylor Lane Anderson. I’m going to remember the way she lived her life.

Because no matter what happens, no matter what fear entangles us, we’ve got to go out in the world and live.

Not only survive. Not just get by.

Live.

Swinging the hammer

March 16, 2011 by Billy Coffey 19 Comments

I just typed the final period of the final draft of what will hopefully be my third book. Always an ambivalent experience. You’re glad the story is done, but at the same time it’s hard to let the story go. Even now, my thoughts are away from this sheet of paper and on my characters. I wonder what they’d do next and if they all managed to carry on. The answer to the former is that I have no idea. The answer to the second? Yes.

I figure that between drafts of books, journal entries, and blog posts, I’ve written about a million words in the last ten years. That’s a lot. And I have proof, too—the trunk beside my desk at home is full of notebooks and papers, as are the bottom two rows of my bookshelves. Not to mention files upon files on my computer. You would think that considering such bountiful evidence, I would know a thing or two about writing.

I don’t.

It’s a sickness to believe otherwise, at least in my case. Each time I feel as though I’m coming down with a case of I-could-do-a-whole-book-about-writing, I remedy myself by actually sitting down to write something. Always does the trick.

Because it’s difficult, the crafting of words. It’s painful and draining, and more than once I’ve asked myself why in the world I do it at all (answer: because it’s more painful and draining if I don’t).

This has been especially true with the book I just finished. Though aspects of it are similar to my first two, much of it isn’t. It was a leap of faith designed to prevent the one feeling I want to preserve every time I sit down to write.

Not hope or faith or love.

Fear.

Yes. While I’m writing, I want to be afraid.

On the surface, that shouldn’t be a problem. Deep down, writers swim in fear. They’re terrified of rejection, anxious that their work will be perceived as infantile, troubled that there are thousands of other writers out there more talented and successful. We’re a tangled mass of neuroses and obsessions.

But those aren’t the sorts of fears I’m talking about. In fact, I’d say those fears should be battered into submission so the real fear—the necessary panic—can course through me unencumbered.

Whatever our words may be to readers, to ourselves they should resemble a sledgehammer taken to the barricade we construct to keep us a safe distance from the world. Each tap of the keys or stroke of the pen should in reality be a swing of the hammer. Each word should be a tiny chunk taken from our walls. Each paragraph a brick, each page a section, until finally we are left naked with nothing between us and our audience.

That’s the fear of which I speak.

That’s the only way writing works.

There are countless definitions of what good writing looks like. For me, only one counts—good writing doesn’t show how we’re all different, but how we’re all the same. And that’s impossible unless writers are willing to be vulnerable.

Vulnerable enough to commit to the page those hidden parts within themselves which they wouldn’t even whisper to their closest friends.

The changing tides

March 14, 2011 by Billy Coffey 16 Comments

June 1992:

Everyone’s telling us to leave, but we’ve already decided that’s not an option. Vacation comes once a year, which means I can only see the ocean once a year, and I didn’t make the four-hour drive from the mountains to the coast just to turn around and go home. Besides, what will soon rage outside is just a tropical storm. It’s not like it’s violent enough to be considered a hurricane.

And there is a strange beauty in all this swirl. The thin line on the horizon that usually separates sapphire water from cobalt sky is gone. Before me instead is a gray that gives the illusion of hole a torn in the universe that threatens to swallow us all.

The boardwalk is empty save for the brave and the stupid. I wander about, unsure if I should be included in the former or the latter. The tide flexes and roars, sending water where beach should be and breakers over the guardrails. Policemen in SUVs rove as sentinels, shouting in loudspeakers over the wind and rain for everyone to seek shelter.

I linger nonetheless, awed by the power of the sea and the smallness of myself. I grip the bench in front of me and squeeze as a sudden gale threatens to send me backward, rain now falling sideways, at first kissing and then slapping my face, and I celebrate that I am alive.

Blue lights in the distance to my left and sirens to my right converge in front of my hotel. Police and rescue personnel pour out of flung-open doors, their binoculars fixed outward toward the raging water. One of them brings a bullhorn to his mouth. Says, “Return to shore immediately.”

I crane my neck around them, out towards the gray hole in the universe. A lone figure on a surfboard pops out among the whitecaps. Swallowed. Pops up once more. He sees the flashing blue lights and the man yelling at him. Reaches up with an arm and waves. Behind him comes a swell that seems stories high. He paddles after it, grips the sides of his board as the wave lifts him. He is to his feet, his arms outstretched, as if hugging the storm itself. Even in the wind and the rain, all this howl, I can hear his joy.

The wave deposits him close to shore but too far for the police to reach him. The man with the bullhorn tries once more—“Return to shore. NOW.” The surfer pauses, stares at us, and smiles. He turns to head back into the maelstrom. One more wave, he asks the storm. Just one more.

When it is over, the police handcuff him and unceremoniously toss his board into the back of an SUV. It’s an unfortunate end to his glorious morning. But I see the smile on his face as he’s placed into custody, and it’s a smile that says it was all worth an arrest.

And as I watch them leave, I know I would say the same.

March 2011:

The weather outside my window this morning reminds me of that long-ago day—gray skies, sideways rain, a gale that rattles the windows. The wavy horizon I’m used to seeing of sapphire mountains and cobalt sky is now a gray tear in my world.

I stand and stare, a cup of coffee in my hand. My thoughts drift back to the man on the surfboard, out there that day in a tempest of water and wind, all to catch that one big wave and to celebrate that he was alive.

I remember what I thought as well, that his deed was a noble one. Not in the eyes of the law, perhaps, but in the laws of existence. I remember envying his courage and the will with which he embraced that one small moment.

Yet as I sip and stare I realize how much I’ve changed in the years since. If I would stand and watch that man dance amongst the waves at thirty-eight instead of nineteen, I would see him as more dunce than hero. Far from believing he was embracing his life, I would think he was spoiling in an act both dangerous and stupid.

I would watch the policemen cuff him and take him to jail, and I would say he’d gotten what he deserved.

That’s what I would think now, and it is not what I thought then.

And honestly, I do not know if that should make me mourn or rejoice.

The last Christmas present

January 20, 2011 by Billy Coffey 35 Comments

There was one last gift under the tree when we took the decorations down. I remember my wife and I looking at one another when we saw it. It was a small look followed by an even smaller one and punctuated by a shake of my head. We ended up putting it aside away from the children’s eyes. It now sits beneath the small table in front of our living room window. I suppose that’s where it’ll stay, at least for now.

It’s a box of chocolates. His favorite, from what I understand. The maroon wrapping paper is neatly folded over it. On the front is a tag. Written on it in the somewhat shaky hand of a child just getting her printing muscles sharpened is his name and the names of my two children.

The chocolates were supposed to have been delivered the last day of school before Christmas vacation. The man was a teacher’s aide, and a good one. He helped my wife during a few classes a day. She said he was a hard worker and good with the students. He helped in my daughter’s class as well, most recently on a science experiment that focused on constructing something that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped ten feet.

It snowed the night before that last day of school though, giving my kids an early Christmas present in the form of a snow day. I remember the kids were upset about that. My wife calmed them by saying they’d be able to give him his present the day they went back. It would be like stretching Christmas out and into the new year. They liked that idea.

Looking back, I wish it hadn’t snowed that day. I wish my kids would have gone to school. They would have gotten to give him his present. It may have been a nice goodbye.

Word came a few days after Christmas that he had quit to find a better job elsewhere. It was sad, but understandable. It’s tough making it these days. No one’s going to blame you for trying to find a better life.

Then, a few days later, came the news reports. First the television, then the paper.

He’d been arrested for allegedly molesting a child.

The school was quick to inform us the incident happened at the man’s home and seemed to be isolated. Neither of those facts offered much comfort. It seemed as though every time I walked into the living room, the first thing I’d see was that present.

It wasn’t a hard decision to keep the news from our children. They were still under the impression that he’d quit, and that was an impression we would leave in place. Unfortunately, other parents thought differently. On the first day back to school, one of my daughter’s classmates told her the man was in jail. Thankfully, she didn’t say why. That omission didn’t matter much to my daughter. Knowing someone you like very much is in jail is enough to break your heart. Why that person is there is irrelevant.

The Christian thing would be to pile the family in the truck and deliver it to his home. The news said he’s out on bail now and awaiting trial. I would imagine he would appreciate even a small gift of chocolates right about now. Whether he’s guilty or not, I’m sure he’s lonely.

That’s what Jesus would do.

Jesus might drive on over to that man’s house, give him a hug, and say I love you, but I can’t. I’m not Jesus. I’m just a dad who can’t stop thinking his family bought a Christmas present for someone who may be a child molester.

My mind keeps returning to the science experiment he and my daughter worked on. The one with the egg. Her team ended up using a concoction of toilet paper, cardboard, and marshmallows to catch the egg when it dropped. They won first place. Theirs was the only entry that kept the egg from breaking.

I wonder if he thought about that. I wonder if he realized eggs are like kids. Easily broken. That’s why you have to protect them. Why you have to love them and cherish them and do your best to keep the world away from them. Because the innocence they possess is the purest thing there is, and because they don’t have to be like you to enter the kingdom of heaven, you have to be like them.

I suppose he didn’t think of that. I wish he would have.

So I ask you, dear reader: What would you do with my box of chocolates?

Johnny’s fear

January 7, 2011 by Billy Coffey 12 Comments

Let me tell you about Johnny.

I met him when I was eight. It was during Bible school, those dreaded five days during the summer when you’re trying to fight the sensation that you’re back in school because you’re afraid God will be mad at you if you feel that way.

He was sitting under the big oak tree by himself, which was where the wayward softball Brent Stinnett hit landed. I was playing centerfield, so I was the one who retrieved it. I asked Johnny to toss it to me. He wouldn’t, so I got it myself. Then I asked if he wanted to play.

“No,” he said.

“Why not?”

Johnny lowered his head and kicked at a root jutting up from the ground, then shrugged.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s fun.”

“No,” he said again.

So I left him there under the oak.

I found him in the same spot the next day for the same reason (that Brent Stinnett could really pound a softball). This time, Johnny was first:

“I don’t want to play,” he said.

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to,” I told him.

“Well, just in case you were gonna, I don’t want to.”

I suppose the Christian thing would have been for me to befriend Johnny right then and there, or at least do a bit of gentle prodding to see what was really bothering him. But I was your average eight-year-old boy, which often means doing the Christian thing is not nearly as important as playing a game of softball.

Besides, by then the chattering had gone around the Bible school playground that Johnny wouldn’t play because he was afraid. Of what, no one was certain.

By day three, I’d learned that when Brent Stinnett came up to the plate, I should back up. So I did, right next to Johnny under his tree.

“Are you really scared like all the kids say?” I asked him.

Silence. Which to me even then meant yes.

“You ain’t gotta be scared. It’s just a game.”

“I ain’t scared,” he said. Then, as if remembering he was in Bible school and thus that God was watching, he added, “Much. I ain’t scared much.”

“What are you scared of?”

“Lots of things,” he said. “Falling down. Striking out. Getting hurt. Hitting somebody. Getting my clothes dirty. Getting stung by a bee. I’m allergic to bees, you know.”

I didn’t know, but at that moment Brent Stinnett flew out to left field and the inning was over. I jogged back toward the field and shouted at Johnny over my shoulder, “You’re just thinkin’ too much.”

Johnny never did play softball that year. Or any other, as a matter of fact. But he did keep coming to church, and it didn’t take me long to realize he was afraid of much more than playing softball. Much, much more.

Like telephones, radios, the dark, spinach, horses, thunder, and butterflies. The list was endless. Johnny was a walking neurosis. It’s a wonder he’s survived this long.

But he has.

I ran into him at the post office the other day, along with his two children and Mary, his wife. Nice family. Johnny has a big job at a bank now. He’s happy and content. And, finally and completely, unafraid.

There was no psychotherapy involved in Johnny’s transformation. No pills or prescriptions. To hear Johnny say it, there was just his faith and his family. That was all he needed.

Maybe that’s all everyone needs. Because the truth is that we all harbor our own fears, those shadows that crawl and slink deep inside and get in the way of seeing the beauty of things. I’m not afraid of softball or telephones or spinach, but I am afraid. I’m afraid a lot. And there are times when I want more than anything else the opposite of that fear.

For the longest time, I thought that opposite was courage. Makes sense, doesn’t it? But Johnny’s taught me different.

He’s taught me that the opposite of fear isn’t courage, the opposite of fear is Love.

The Masks We Wear

May 2, 2009 by Billy Coffey 38 Comments

I saw my first anti-swine-flu-surgical-mask-wearing person yesterday. At Wal-Mart, of course. Standing in the express line with a shopping cart full of Lysol, Tylenol, latex gloves, bottled water, and, strangely enough, picture frames.

Her posture was stiff and alert, which made it easier for her to keep a vigilant watch over the no-fly zone she had mentally cordoned off around herself. Anyone or anything germy that approached was shot down with a laser-like stare.

I’d heard that the top three bestselling items at amazon.com the past week were three different brands of surgical masks. Drug and department stores couldn’t keep them in stock. And a lot of other people felt the plain old masks from the local Rite-Aid wouldn’t do. They needed extra protection. So now even the Lowe’s next door was running short on the thick industrial masks that were guaranteed to keep everything out. Including oxygen.

I assumed that she would make it safely through the checkout line and back home, where she would undoubtedly proceed to fill sandbags, listen to her ham radio, and clean the shotgun she would use to fight off the flu zombies. I couldn’t be sure, though. I didn’t stick around. Instead of making an attempt at conversation, I swung wide right and went the other way. Which was probably for the best. Even if she wanted to talk to me, she probably wouldn’t have. And how well can you understand people talking through those masks, anyway?

I wasn’t making light of both her and the whole swine flu thing (now called H1N1, by the way. It sounds more clinical). I knew this was serious, that people had died, and that paranoia was spreading faster than the virus itself. Yet it seemed as though every day brought a new Something that beckoned us to shudder and bite our fingernails in dread. There was only so much life-altering news I could take in a short amount of time, and I’d gotten a little callous in the process. If the Chinese invaded tomorrow, I’d probably just yawn and go back to bed.

Sure, I was concerned. How could I not be? It was all over the news, and the Vice President had all but dared us to go outside our homes. I just hadn’t progressed to the mask-wearing point.

My mind ambled back to one of my earlier thoughts: how well can you understand people who are talking through those things? I’d seen actors on television talk just fine while wearing them, but that’s as close as I’d gotten.

Not having anything better to do, I decided to ask the pharmacist. Yes, he said, you can talk through them. And yes, you can be understood.

He said this with the supreme air of confidence that you tend to get from a Wal-Mart employee. But I still didn’t buy it. A mask might let words through, but it hides the important things. I can say I’m happy, but the smile that accompanies those words is proof. And I can tell you I’m upset, but you wouldn’t be sure unless you saw me frown. Most of our communication goes beyond vocabulary. If you want to truly understand people, you have to do more than listen to them. You have to look, too.

“We can’t keep ‘em,” the pharmacist told me. “Everyone’s afraid.”

I could understand. Because we all put a mask on when we’re afraid. We all drew an imaginary circle around our hearts and dared anyone to come too close.

We all tried to keep the world from us, never pausing to consider that by doing so we also kept us from the world.

It seemed to me that we all had a choice to make. We could let the fear take us, or we could let God lead us. We could shut ourselves off from the world, or we could open ourselves to it.

We could put on a mask, or we could put on our faith.

“Would you like one?” he asked.

“No, thanks,” I answered. “I’ll take my chances for now.”

“Germs spread by contact,” he warned.

“So do blessings,” I said. Then I smiled, and walked on.

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