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Unnecessary Fear
Then say to me again the words I could not hear
When I was tense and troubled by unnecessary fear.
My dear friend Amy offered me that couplet 41 years ago. I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Amy can do that to you. She can say beautiful things casually, as if they are nothing much; and they turn out to be something huge. As this one did.
Fear of what we will hear can keep us from listening, from asking, from learning, even from being interested. It can make us change the subject, darting frenetically among the points until we collapse and cannot find our way back even to the person. Fear of what we will hear can keep us from collaborating, solving, rejoicing.
But central to her point is the word “unnecessary.” And central to our engaging with each other well is our distinguishing between necessary and unnecessary fear. What, I wonder still, is a necessary fear between people in conversation?
I don’t think there is one.
There is nothing we can hear that we can’t handle. If what we hear is hard, it is just hard, that’s all. It is not lethal. It is not even disabling. It just feels bad. Maybe for a while what we hear seems un-tame-able, impenetrable even. But to hear something is not to experience it. To hear something is to process it. Fear makes processing ragged.
So the wisdom from Amy’s words is, I think, that we have a choice in the moment to fear or not to fear. To hear or not to hear. It is almost always the assumption, “I cannot handle it” that fires up the fear. “I can handle whatever I hear,” obviates the fear. “I can handle it” protects the brain, and thus the heart, and thus our attention, and thus our intelligence.
Maybe, after all these years, I could reply to Amy with this couplet:
Please say to me whatever words are true,
And I will hear them all, as I love you.