Not Afraid

As I reflect upon some episodes in my life I marvel at my lack of fear. At the age of 13 my parents sent me off to a religious ministerial training prep school, a boys only boarding situation. I was really quite naïve, having grown up in the country surrounded by a close-knit family, relatives and friends who cared about me and watched over all of us youngsters who were considered part of a very large congregation-wide extended family. I knew nothing about guys “from the city” or kids whose parents were something other than farmers, ministers or country trades-people. But off I went unconcerned and unafraid. The school was small enough so one could play on all sports teams. The Profs knew us and our parents and most of us came from equally depleted depression era homes. I was unafraid and it worked great!

When I later worked in Hong Kong I always felt perfectly at ease everywhere I went in that Colony, even in the relatively off limits section called Kowloon City. Once I went roaring through there when I probably should have been afraid. My assistant principal had guaranteed some loans and then was unable to repay them. He contacted me to come in my car to pick him up from a designated location. I should have been forewarned when he ducked low and crept into the back seat of my car. He had glanced back just long enough to see another car about a hundred yards behind us ready go come get him. I sped away. Flying up and down streets and alleys until we lost our pursuers in Kowloon City. I found a route to the rural New Territories where he asked me to just drop him off and drive away. I do not remember being afraid.

When I worked in Hong Kong I had the privilege of serving Lutheran schools in all parts of that metropolitan community. Sometimes this entailed night meetings in all sections of Manhattan, the Bronx and Brooklyn. I always went, carefully and confident, assured that my colleagues were not asking me to do anything they themselves did not also do. I had nothing to fear. I remember especially one evening when I met with a group of parents in a Harlem apartment. They had invited me there in an attempt to help save their Lutheran school. During the conversation they told me of a community network they had established which kept an eye on each of the pupils on their way to and from school, assuring their safety. Then they told me that they had made a similar arrangement for me that night to get safely to my car and home. I had no need to be afraid

On another occasion I had reason enough to fear and I wonder why I do not recall that emotion. My two sons and I had gotten caught up in the Tien An Men Square massacre in l989. We were trying to get out of Beijing. We had actually hired a very small van driven by a man determined to defy the authorities. We drove past barricades which had been run over by tanks. We saw burning busses. We watched crowds ebb and flow as the military approached and backed off. We smelled the odor of burnt bodies, some hung from lampposts. Just as we thought we had gotten through the worst of it we suddenly heard the sound of guns from our right. Bullets could be heard flying near our small van. We proceeded forward and suddenly all was still. In retrospect it seems to me that I experienced it somehow more as an observer than as a participant. I do not recall being afraid. I do recall praying, so that is probably the more accurate remembrance.

I do not fear death. I sometimes feel uneasy about what could be a painful process preceding death. But I have no fear of death and the after-life. I figure that God and God’s Grace have that pretty well handled.