PANDEMIC PONDERINGS (6) - Coping with fear in a time of crisis

“Have no fear, little flock” (Luke 12.32)

During our holiday this summer my partner and I decided to experience a ride on the ‘Eastbourne Eye’, a cantilevered wheel similar to that on the banks of the Thames.  It was a very windy day and as we went round and arrived at the top the Wheel stopped – and so did my heart.  Neither of us like heights, although we’re both up for an adventure, but as the insubstantial swing- boat in which we sat suddenly became buffeted by the wind I found myself petrified by fear.  However, after the initial shock I decided to breathe deeply and make a mental ‘health and safety check’ which led me to realise it was unlikely we would die.

Fear and pandemics

I’m not alone in noticing how, in the wake of the Covid-19, many are expressing profound fears about the virus and the interrelated matter of the environmental crisis.  Fear is a natural response to perceived dangers and is built into our primal memory bank as part of the brains complex “threat detection system” but whilst fear can be a healthy thing, it can also take on negative forms which can begin to control our lives.  So whilst it’s natural to fear whatever might overwhelm us, the prophets of old knew the dangers it posed:

But now thus says the Lord,

    he who created you, O Jacob,

    he who formed you, O Israel: 

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

    and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

    I have called you by name, you are mine. you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

    and the flame shall not consume you. (Is. 43.1f)

Jesus went on to build on this prophetic assurance:

“Peace I leave with you (said Jesus); my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (Jn. 14.27)

‘He rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?’ (Mk. 4.39)

‘Why are you afraid (said Jesus); you of little faith?’ (Mk. 8.26)

Trust and faith
In all these statements there is an element of recalling our need to trust. That doesn’t mean people of faith are to be naïve in their response to the virus, but it does suggest that we need to trust that, in the end, we are called into a relationship that will never fail us and that, in particular, we are not to fear death.  Whilst we might be concerned to avoid pain that can come in varied ways, the call to trust echoes through the gospels and inspired the saints to acts of great compassion in the face of other’s suffering. Whatever the outward circumstances we need to trust that God is always present. As St. Francis de Sales said:

Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow.
The same Eternal Father who cares for you today
will take good care of you tomorrow
and every day of your life.
 
Either he will shield you from suffering or
He will give you the unfailing strength to bear it.
Be at peace then and put aside all useless thoughts,
vain dreads, and anxious imaginations.

Faith overcomes fear
Jesus clearly recognised the crippling effects of mistrust, anxiety and fear and so, in the embolism during the Our Father at the Eucharist, the priest prays: “Deliver us, Lord, from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety (italics mine) as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Saviour, Jesus Christ.”  
    We need to remember that our faith is in One who Himself faced the chaos of sin and death with complete faith in His Father, and we are called to be rooted in that same faith in the face of fear.  That doesn’t mean we should bury our heads in the sand and ignore crisis but that we need to be rooted in this truth – that Christ has conquered the darkness and, specifically, the darkness of death.  For whilst many fear the ending of life, we need to hold firm in the faith that Christ will draw us through death into life.  

Mindfulness, philosophers and apatheia
If the church has forgotten this teaching practitioners of Mindfulness have filled the gap with a simple mantra: ‘face fear and keep going’ which, in its simplicity, has much to teach – but the Desert Fathers and Mothers (Elders) knew more.  They were aware that classical Stoic philosophers had already identified the dangers of our disordered passions which can begin to control our lives and had developed a teaching called ‘apatheia’ (meaning without passion or suffering) to eradicate the tendency to react emotionally to uncontrollable external events.  Instead we are to manage our passions in order to enable us to create a sound emotional state.  

They understood fear to be one of four passions – distress, pleasure and appetite usually being the others – and believed these to be unnatural and unreasonable corruptions of how the soul needed to respond in life.  Each had its opposite needing cultivation and the opposite of fear (something bad is going to happen) was understood to be caution (or concern).  They believed fear, like the other passions, to be an excessive emotion that has gone beyond reasonable judgement, and to help counteract the influence of our unhealthy passions realised the need to nurture healthy emotions.

Desert Mothers and Fathers and the saints
Turning to the Desert Elders, they recognised that ‘purity of heart’ about which Jesus spoke in the Beatitudes (Matt.5.8) was the way to the attainment of sanctification of life and on that path they recognised how our passions can lead us astray.  They read in the Letter to Titus that we have become ‘slaves to various passions and pleasures’ (3.3) and Origen (c.184-c.253AD) in particular understood that out of the heart come evil intentions: murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness and slander (Matt. 15.19) and knew we needed to address these disordered emotions in seeking to purify the heart.  Whilst fear as a ‘passion’ isn’t an evil, it’s clear that it leads us away from faith. 

In his book, The Orthodox Church, Protopresbyter Thomas Hopko writes: ‘According to the spiritual tradition of the Church, we need to control the spiritual mastery over the lusts of the mind and the flesh often called “passionlessness” by the spiritual masters. Passionlessness (apatheia) does not mean the destruction of the natural drives and desires of the body and soul, such as the need for sleep, food and drink; or the emotions such as spiritual desire, zeal, excitement, joy, awe, sorrow or fear. It means rather the control of the feelings that are normal, natural and healthy, and the mortification of the feelings that are wicked and evil.’  

Evagrius Ponticus (345-399) wrote that ‘psalmody calms the passions and curbs the uncontrolled impulses in the body; and prayer enables the intellect to activate its own energy’ (On Prayer, 83).

John Cassian (360-435) avoided the word apatheia preferring the Latin term puritas cordis (purity of heart), a term which has shifted the focus away from prayer being a mental activity to a more heart-felt response.  It underscores the love of God rather than the knowledge of God as the essential element in the union between God and the one who prays, emphasising that it is not the individual’s struggle against the passions that produces a pure heart, but God’s grace (Conference's 1:4, 5-6, cf. 1 Cor. 15.10).  Humility plays a crucial role in this work of opposing the passions (agere contra) which St. Ignatius Loyola would later develop in his Spiritual Exercises.   

Maximus the Confessor (c.580-662) distinguished between the object of the passion and the passion (disordered desire) itself.  He maintained that created things come from God and are, therefore, good but that evil can implant the disordered desire concerning the creative thing in the mind and heart (Centuries on Various Texts):

‘Until you have been completely purified from the passions, you should not engage in natural contemplation through the images of sensible things: for until then such images are able to mould your intellect so that so that it conforms to passion.’ (II: 75)

Maximus was more concerned that the will should be freed from the passions and apatheia, for him, did not mean lack of emotion but a state where the passions are transformed into love.  All created things are of God and reflect God's image and likeness and the kind of love of which he writes is only possible if one has attained this apathia through contemplation.  

Francis of Assisi (c.1182-1226) knew all about fear – he had a great fear of leprosy: “When I was in sin, the sight of lepers nauseated me beyond measure; but then God himself led me into their company, and I had pity on them. When I became acquainted with them, what had previously nauseated me became the source of spiritual and physical consolation for me” (Testament, St. Francis). This change came about when, realising the power of the desolation he experienced, he decided to embrace a leper, the symbol of his fear, and discovered a deep sense of consolation.  Such consolation wasn't so much a feeling of happiness as an awareness that he lived with faith, hope and love. (This account needs to be heard in the same way as Jesus’ instruction to tear out your eye if it offends you (Matt. 18.9f)

Later, Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) became aware of two different spirits at work within the soul and attributed the cause of feelings of dryness and discontent to the evil spirit and the feelings of being consoled and content to God. (Autograph 8).  He doesn’t write about apatheia as such but does say, in the opening of his Spiritual Exercises, that “… it is necessary to pray for ‘indifference’ (detachment from disordered passions; tranquillity of soul) to all created things, in regard to everything which is left to our free will and is not forbidden”  (Principle and Foundation).  Such indifference is rooted in the understanding of God’s ultimate love and faithfulness for us and is clearly similar to apatheia.     

He also teaches the need for that agere contra (Admonition 16) taught by John Cassian saying that in the face of disordered tendencies towards riches, honour and pride (and fear) a person should make every possible effort to oppose this tendency so that their goal becomes simply the love and service of God.  In this way they discover a higher degree of spiritual freedom enabling them to act rather than, in the case of fear, to freeze.  This is contemplation-in-action: ‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love’ (1 John 4.18).

Apatheia and fear
Our response to fear is often to freeze, panic or to seek distractions.  Whilst Buddhism teaches that we need to learn to face our fear, looking at it as you meditate to quieten the heart and mind, Christianity seems to have forgotten its own insights.  Apatheia isn’t the same as the English corruption, ‘apathy’, but connotes a calmness and composure in difficulties by practicing Ignatius Loyola’s teaching about agere contra – working against disordered desires.  In fact, Ignatius shows he understands the real value of this ancient wisdom by teaching the importance of living with indifferentia, (not the same as careless indifference) which is akin to the practice of detachment about which all spiritual writers teach and which is the way into that purity of heart which enables the vision of God.  It implies the soul’s state of ‘spiritual peace’ or well-being whereby excessive and negative emotions are replaced by reasonable desires based on love and humility.

(with thanks to: Joseph H. Nguuyen SJ, Apatheia, Cascade Books, 2018)