Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Rachel Marie Stone

Home
Progressive Christian
Marilynne Robinson on faith and fear (& how we can be free not to worry)

Marilynne Robinson on faith and fear (& how we can be free not to worry)

Last updated on: October 30, 2014 at 4:19 pm by Rachel Marie Stone

Marilynne Robinson on faith and fear (& how we can be free not to worry) 2014-10-30T16:19:14-04:00 Rachel Marie Stone

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It’ll sound like I am joking but I’m not: I was worried about reading this book about worry.

Maybe it was the subtitle that had me most worried, partly because it touches a nerve — I know that it is possible to “choose faith in a world full of worry” but it’s a lot easier to return like a dog to the chew the old, tired bone of worry. In true worrywart fashion, I feel that adequately worrying my way through my litany of worries galvanizes me against the possibility of the things I worry about actually taking place.

And even if I know, rationally, that this is untrue, and that I may as well enjoy the moment I am in instead of “taxing my life with forethought of grief” (to use Wendell Berry’s beautiful phrase), the sad truth is that sometimes I actually forget what I was worrying about and then worry that I am not worrying enough about x, y, or z.

Amy Simpson’s book sat on my table for a while, and then, on a crisp fall afternoon, I curled up with a blanket in the rocking chair on my front porch and read and read. And there on the first page, Amy assured readers that her book is not a shamey, blamey book. It is an invitation to live into the truth of our lives: yes, there are dangers and things to be afraid of, yes, we have responsibilities, no, we can’t know or control the future, yes, that’s kind of hard, no, we are not God.

We are not God.

I am not God.

The saddest part about worry — and Amy touches on this quite a lot — is that it prevents us from enjoying what we have when we have it. Rather than enjoy health or prosperity when we have it, we worry about disease and financial ruin, even when things seem to be going well.

And sometimes that’s because worrying makes us feel important: godlike, as if the whirring of our hamster wheels of worry are actually keeping the earth rotating on its axis and revolving around the sun.

Which would make us very, very important and very, very powerful, indeed!

I thought of a recent interview I saw with Marilynne Robinson on Bill Moyers’ show. Marilynne Robinson has written and spoken persuasively on fear.

MOYERS: What’s the source [of fear]?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: I think that, I mean, it’s exciting to people.

BILL MOYERS: Fear?

MARILYNNE ROBINSON: Fear. Yes. I mean, look at the ways in which fear manifests itself. You know, this sort of anti-immigration feelings, that people with these crazy weapons, people, buying apocalyptic money, or freeze-dried apocalypse dinners and things like that. You know, I think that it makes a little narrative that makes you the hero in an imagined drama. It makes anybody else a potential threat. It’s like late-night TV or something, you know? And I think that it has been pushed on people, it’s used as a stimulus to make people watch cable network A rather than B and so on. And it’s become a kind of addiction, I think.

As I wrote more than two years ago for Christianity Today:

Fear is unChristian, says Robinson. Calvinists—Robinson identifies herself as such—have been said to “fear God and nothing else.” Yet Americans—and perhaps especially, religious Americans—can’t seem to get over the idea that we are under attack. “We’re stuck in psycho-emotional bomb shelters,” says Robinson, when, in fact, we Westerners are more free, safe, and stable than most people throughout the world and throughout history have ever hoped to be. “Why not enjoy it?” said Robinson with the hint of a chuckle. More soberly, she argued that fear—and people feeling “justified in fear”—leads to violence in the form of “preemptive self-defense.”

Yes, there is much to fear. There is the truth that all of us will suffer loss and sorrow and death. We can’t escape or prevent that. And in truth, so many things that were once rational and reasonable fears — death from vaccine preventable diseases, say — have been mostly eliminated for us in the developed world. We are, by global and historical standards, wonderfully prosperous and shockingly free.

Why not enjoy it, indeed?

Previous Post

October 28, 2014

Why a former exotic dancer says its not up to Christians to say "go and sin no more."

Next Post

November 5, 2014 Marilynne Robinson on politics: "the cheapest intellectual environment that you can enter into."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "health" activism agriculture animals anorexia Anticipating anxiety art autumn Baking beauty beer Bible Big Food binge eating blogging body image Books Bread of Life breastfeeding brokenness candy cartoons celebrity chefs children chocolate Classical Duckfaces Connecting consumption cooking creation care creativity current events death Dessert diabetes Dieting Eating Together Emotional Eating fair trade Faith Family Fannie Farmer fast food fat talk Films Food Food Policy formula feeding Gardening gluten free Grace gratitude guest posts guilt HIV/AIDS holiday hospitality housekeeping Jesus Joy just for fun Justice kindness Local media moment of joy north fork, long island OI parties personal pharmaceuticals photo photography plumpy'nut popular culture poverty pregnancy Preserving real food recipes rest restaurants School Food Seasons spring starvation summer Table Talk taste television theology travel Tuesdays With Fannie Uncategorized winter

Select a Month April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 August 2014 May 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land. Seek righteousness, seek what else?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Justice Peace Mercy Humility