Perfect Love Drives out Fear

Now and again I find that I get introduced to new music by my kids. (well, it might be music that has been around for a while but it’s new to me). So it is that I am currently listening to “Muse” thanks to Colin, “Isabelle Boulay” because of Judith’s Francophile tastes, and “Death Cab for Cutie”, well, because it was on Sharon’s ipod!

This latter outfit are an American indie band, from Washington State, and their songs are thoughtful and melancholic. It was when I was running and listening to the song “I will follow you into the dark” * from their “Paths” album that set my mind thinking about Fear and about Religion.

“In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule

I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black

And I held my tongue as she told me

"Son fear is the heart of love"

So I never went back…”

“…If there's no one beside you

When your soul embarks

Then I'll follow you … into the dark”

Morose lyrics, indeed, morbid even. And, while it may paint an unfair caricature of life in church schools, it is a picture which most likely rings a bell in many minds from personal experience. But how far removed is the statement “Fear is the heart of love” from that of Saint John, when he said * *

“There is no fear in love,
Perfect love casts out fear. ~
Because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

And as I think of the way people shy away from us because we might seem somehow religious, or they suspect our motives, because we might want to share the joy we know and experience, then, I think what a stumbling block religion can become. Religion breeds fear, because fear has to do with the intangible, and the sense of powerlessness and vulnerability that comes from it, for religion deals with intangibles, mysteries, hidden things.

But what that dear old Saint John talks about is far from intangible. It is a living and loving relationship with a God who is there and who is not silent and who cares and who loves. The reality of that love drives out fear, empowers us and keeps us against the uncanny, the undefined and the dark unkown. I'm very glad to not have religion, but to have relationship, because religion kills, but relationship brings to life.

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6XZsau7CSk

* * 1 John 4:18