Lions and Panic and Fear, Oh My

I talked with my spiritual advisor yesterday afternoon. She really helped calm me down some so that I could focus on the solution to the problems that were starting to overwhelm me. I had almost reached panic mode, a very dangerous place for me. I for one can not think well and rationally about any situation that has me so afraid I am almost panicked. During our talk she told me that I needed to meditate on the second step, that I came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. I did not have the objectivity to see that my thinking was not sane because of the fear. Fear does that. I realized I had begun heading toward the same kind of thinking that causes someone with a lump to not go to the doctor because they're afraid of what news they'll receive.

Now that's insanity caused by fear. To be afraid that you are deathly ill with something like cancer but refuse to go to the doctor because it scares you to much to hear those words is the absolute worse thing that can be done. But people do respond like that. Going to the doctor and hearing the word cancer will not make a person less afraid. It might make it worse. But with that also comes a step by step here is what we need to do from a higher power, in this case the doctor. I can handle fear when I have such an outline. I know you're afraid, but do this first, now do that, and don't forget to do this, and most importantly trust God because now you are doing what needs to be done.

Having a sound plan of action gives me courage. It is true what has been said about courage. Courage is not the absence of fear but to continue to do what needs to be done in spite of fear. I can find the courage when I know what needs to be done. But I need to know. I need that doctor to say set an appointment for chemo on such and such a date. I need a sergeant to get in my face and say I know you're scared but you're going to die if you stay here, so get your ass out of this foxhole, skirt those bushes and get up that hill. Without a plan of action I do not know which is the right way to move, and I hunker down in fear, refuse to move, deceive myself into believing that staying where I am at is the safest thing for me to do as the enemy gets closer and closer to getting my location nailed down with mortar fire. I call that understandable insanity. But I don't want to be insane. I want God to return me to sanity so that I can find the courage to do what I need to do.

And so I did the first thing of the step by step plan we came up with, and I meditated on God returning me to sanity over fear. In doing so, I recalled one of the greatest sermons I ever heard my father preach. OK, in all truth, even he laughs and admits it might have been a little too much and a little too graphic, and I know that he has preached many sermons with more profound truths about the grace of God. But considering that somewhere around thirty years later I still remember this little lesson, I have to consider it a great sermon. And for the little boy that I was at the time and my friends, we believed it to be the coolest sermon ever. It also happened to be true.

Many reading this may be familiar with the verse that says that Satan is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and not really thought much of it. I never considered it as particularly profound before the sermon I mentioned. It simply meant the devil was a bad guy that wanted to kill me, right? Not exactly.

Before I go on, I would like to say that for the purposes of my little writing here it doesn't matter one bit if you believe in an actual literal Satan or not. I don't care. It doesn't change the truth. The enemy is a roaring lion.....Fear is a roaring lion. Doesn't matter. If it's nothing more than fear and there is no devil, the result is the same. If there is a Satan, who that believes that would argue that fear is not his prime tool of choice? So either way...

My father had read an article in Outdoor Life about African man eating lions. He used what he learned as a sermon illustration. It seems my conception about lions running through the jungle attacking people was a little off, and therefore my understanding of the verse about the lion was also a little off. Man eating lions are especially dangerous because once they get a good taste of human blood, they won't hunt anything else much. But it's not that they kill and eat humans that is the real lesson. After all, we knew that from the label man eating lions.

Here is the interesting part, the part that really stuck with me. These lions would wait right outside the village until darkness had fallen. we feel more vulnerable in the dark and everything scary seems that much scarier. Then they prowl around the perimeter on the edge of the light where they are safe from the eyes and arrows or bullets or spears of night watchmen, and they roar. That roar may not sound all that frightening when it's heard at a zoo, but in that situation it sends a chill to the core of those hearing it and fills intended victims with fear.

This is where dealing with lions with courage means taking the opposite action of what I described with the doctor and foxhole illustrations. Those that know what to do and keep their head enough to do it, don't move. They stay where they are. It is extremely rare for a lion to go into camp after a meal. There is too much danger. No, they will simply prowl and roar, letting their voice fill the air and ears with dread, until someone panics and bolts in the opposite direction of a particularly close sounding threat. About the time that they reach the darkness and underbrush around the settlement they get a quick reminder that lions rarely hunt alone as they are caught without protection, weapons or the ability to think clearly. The lions grab the person, and begin eating. Realize I did not say killing and then eating. They begin to feast while the victim still lives because there seems to be something about hearing your villagemate scream in agony as he or she is being devoured that makes it more likely someone will panic and run next time, even though logic would say that it would emphasize the need to stay put next time.

And that is the point. There is nothing logical or sane about running from a tent into the night when the lions start roaring. And there is nothing logical or sane about how I react to panic levels of fear either. But the scary part is that what panic induced insanity springs to mind at those moments seems perfectly logical and like the only sane thing to do. I need that objective perspective to remind me that I know that those who go running off into the night when the roaring starts get eaten alive. That way I can say, whew yeah, I remember now. I almost got stupid. OK, I'm staying right where I am supposed to. I may still be afraid, but I am no longer terrified and in danger of panicking.

Fear is a roaring lion seeking whom it may devour. It prowls around the outer edges of my consciousness, it weaves in and out around my safe areas, and roars. The sound shakes the walls and rattles the windows. It cuts through me as a cold wind leaving me shivering and afraid. It continues and continues until I simply can not take the sound any longer. I become claustrophobic within my own skin. I can't stay in this situation and location one more second. I can't stand it. I have to move. I have to do something. I'm going insane. I have to I have to I have to bolt. And then I am caught and the pain begins as what I was trying to avoid chomps down on my legs.

It's the truth behind the ridiculousness of horror movies, the real reason why the dumb blonde always runs into exactly the wrong place. Panic is the killer of sound rational thought. But that roaring that shakes the walls and rattles the windows is just noise. That's it, nothing more than empty noise. And when I can remember that and make note of what the correct plan of action is I can be afraid of what is causing the noise without panicking and providing its supper.