What Am I Afraid Of.... A Dispatch From Scotland

White Sands Beach, Isle of Iona, Scotland

What Am I Afraid Of?

A Dispatch From Scotland

(For By Invitation Only)

The branch of the sweet gum tree bounced in the wind just outside our kitchen window.  For days my Mother and I had watched the robins come and go as they fed what was obviously a full nest of new babies.  I was little, I was fascinated, and I was bubbling over with curiosity.  I wanted to see inside that nest.  It was so easy for me to imagine fluffy yellow little birds, the sort that dipped and darted round Snow White as she skipped through the Disney forest.  Or the bright baby blue ones that helped dress Cinderella for the ball.   So finally, my Father took me outside and lifted me high in the air… up, up… to the nest of baby birds.  

No sooner were my eyes level with that nest then they were met with a 

scene so horrific I could only give that silent, Munch-like scream of the truly terrified.  Four hideous heads - if one could accurately call them heads, for they resembled nothing so recognizable to me - sprung up before me, sharply pointed mouths agape - squealing like spectres from hell itself .  These were not the birds of fairy tales, oh, no. These were creatures of Lovecraft and Poe and thus, this was the very first time I remember experiencing fear.  I did not like it one bit.  I still prefer to watch birds from a respectful distance.  

As I grew older I developed categories of fright.   Waterbugs and snakes were somewhere near the top of the list and invisible beings lurking beneath the bed rated highly.  Spiders were ranked according to size while sharks and horror movies, both terrifying, were both easy to avoid and were consequently regulated to the bottom of the list.   These were the frights of childhood, but as we clock more and more time here on Earth, those little scares and starts begin to coalesce into something more nebulous, more insidious and more internal - they become fear.

 To be human is to have known fear.  That grey shroud that cloaks the mind, erasing any hopeful feeling, deleting any comforting word.  It is the nadir of human emotion and we flee from it with justification.  But through the years I’ve come to realize that greatest thing I fear, is that very feeling of fear.  Roosevelt had it exactly right.   Rarely does the thing I fear equal the fear that I’ve felt anticipating it.   Even excruciating loss - so dreaded, so black -  has distilled into gratitude, bringing with it the comfort of memory and deep, abiding hope.  Crossing each and every frightful bridge has only given me a surer step.  Though, granted, it is difficult to remember this when that feeling of fear descends on the soul.

There are places on earth where the veil betwixt heaven and earth becomes sheer as gossamer.  I have stood in one such place this week, on the strange and holy white shores of the Isle of Iona, in the northwest of Scotland.  It was a luxury to ponder the question posed by this post in such a place as this for in this setting where the path between the ages seems clearly marked and beckoning I can see quite clearly that, at this point in my journey, the only real thing I truly fear is regret.  The ignored invitation, the shunned experience.

There were fat fluffy clouds in the blue, blue sky as I made my way along the path to the sea on Iona.  As I crossed a sheep-speckled meadow, I passed two elderly women going the opposite way and overheard one say to the other as she pointed to a blanket of bright sunlight illuminating the violet hues of the mountains across the sound on the Isle of Mull.  “See that?  That’s the pearl of great price.  You wait all day for a view like that and so many people just walk past and never notice”. 

A life half lived.

That’s what I’m afraid of.  So I notice.  I appreciate.  I am grateful.

 I hold both arms as wide open as I can to gather in all the beauty around me. 

 It’s there for all of us.
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Find lots of other interesting takes on this topic HERE

And to see more of my Scottish journey, look HERE