Eileen Flanagan

Yesterday, after running into a woman whose husband is in remission from brain cancer, I realized how many reminders I’ve been getting lately of life’s fragility. A member of our meeting has entered hospice after many months of treatment for brain cancer. Another member’s ALS has progressed to the point where, for the first time on Sunday, I couldn’t understand something she said. A good friend, who is my age, just got diagnosed with breast cancer (which is mercifully easier to treat than ALS or brain cancer), and the father of one of my son’s classmates died suddenly of a heart attack on Monday. Another friend’s father-in-law also died this week, all of which prompted me to remember to include our health in the things we thank God for at prayer-time each night.

An awareness of life’s fragility can make us fearful and paranoid (When am I due for a mammogram?), but it can also prompt us to appreciate the present. The meeting member with brain cancer continually posts things on the Internet about trusting God and experiencing peace. The member with ALS made us all get up and dance in our places after worship on Sunday in order to advertise the Brazilian dance party she will be leading from her wheelchair next month. I suspect I’m not the only one who has been moved by these two members’ example.

I finally got through most of The Science of Fear, which I mentioned a few posts ago. It is really a well-written, thought-provoking book. While there were many parts that confirmed things I already believed—(George Bush manipulated people’s fear to lead us into a war that’s not making us safer.)—there were other parts that challenged my beliefs, particularly the author’s assertion that environmentalists manipulate statistics and fear just as much as other groups. He put my fear that my children are being exposed to all kinds of toxic chemicals into the context of childhood mortality rates before we had chlorine in the water, arguing his conclusion that “There’s Never Been a Better Time to Be Alive” in terms of actual risk. Although he may err on the side of underestimating the threat of climate change, he offers a helpful perspective, when so much media is designed to prey on parental insecurity. I found the book just one more reminder that I don’t want to live in fear or encourage the fears of others, despite the real and constant fragility of life. 

So on Saturday, I’m planning to drive my Toyota, full of children, in a snow storm, to take my first snowboarding lesson at age 47. Do I trust God, or what?

Speaking of fear… I’ve been given my own opportunity to work through some. As some of you know, I teach a class on South African history at University of the Arts, which I really enjoy. The course uses the art, music, and literature of South Africa to study the apartheid era. This is the fifth time I’m teaching it, and the student response has been positive. For some students, the course has been transformative. For me, it has been a way to teach ideas I care about while staying connected to the younger me who was in the Peace Corps in Botswana in the 1980s. I’ve been longing to go back to Southern Africa some time, and though the cost has always seemed prohibitive, teaching this course keeps me feeling somewhat connected.

A few weeks ago, the head of Liberal Arts asked if I would be interested in leading a group of students on a two-week study/trip to South Africa next January. My first reaction was that I’d love to, if I didn’t have kids. He said, “You have a husband don’t you?” It turns out my husband is very supportive, especially since the trip would occur while our kids were in school, so I’ve been seriously thinking about it, swinging from wildly excited about the idea, to just a bit freaked out. Here are a few of the questions that are arising: 

How many college students could I handle as a lone adult in a very different country with a high crime rate?

Could I arrange for another teacher to come with me?

Is it OK to leave my children (ages 10 and 13) for that long?

Knowing that they have a very competent father, why does the thought of going make me feel like a selfish mother?

What if an asteroid hits Three Mile Island while I’m gone, and I can’t reach my family?

What if a UArts student gets hit by a car or arrested for drug use, and I don’t have another teacher to back me up?

What if I’m not as brave as when I was 22 and hitchhiked from Lesotho to Botswana?

And then on the positive side:

Could I arrange a trip that would give the students real engagement with another culture and with inequality, without having us seem like tourists on safari?

Could I arrange a way for the students to share their artistic abilities in schools in South Africa, which might be a particularly meaningful form of service for them?

Could I go in 2011 and then bring my family with me the following year?

I’ve thought about bringing my family to Botswana and then writing a book about the experience, contrasting the country today with the one I lived in pre-AIDS. Although the kids are not enthused, it turns out that the hospice my husband works for has an exchange program in Botswana, which seems so serendipitous that it must be some kind of sign, although it hasn’t yet seemed rightly ordered to pursue that. Perhaps this trip is some kind of preparation for that later, longer excursion?

The biggest question, from a Quaker viewpoint, is, “Am I led to do this?” I’ve wanted to go back to Southern Africa for many years, and here way is opening for me to do so. Does that necessarily mean that this is the way to go? That’s where sorting through my fears gets important. I don’t yet have clarity about whether my fears are signs that I shouldn’t do it or just things to be worked through. As usual, writing is a way for me to process. So is waiting, so I’m going to work on something else this week and see which feelings last.

I’ve been reading this fascinating book by Daniel Gardner called The Science of Fear: How the Culture of Fear Manipulates Your Brain. One of the things he talks about is how our brains haven’t evolved much since the days when our ancestors learned about new dangers around the campfire, even though our information systems have expanded exponentially. As a result, he argues, we walk around ramped up on fear because of stories we’ve heard, even though we (especially middle class Americans?) live in a much safer world than most human beings in history. His analysis rings true to me. When I got a permission slip for my two children to go on a middle school ski trip, the first thing I thought of was Natasha Richardson, the actress who died last year from bumping her head during a beginning ski class. The chances of that happening to one of my children are so infinitesimal that in a hunter gatherer society I would never have heard of such a thing. But because of the wonders of CNN (my very large campfire), I did hear about it, saw her picture day after day, and that of her grieving husband, Liam Neeson. I’ve also heard about people dying from eating contaminated spinach, from drinking too much water, and from getting locked in a filing cabinet—all unlikely tragedies that Gardner says ramps up our anxiety about everything, even mundane concerns—like do I have anything to cook for dinner? 

A hundred pages into the book, I started limiting my news intake. This was particularly easy because the little radio I usually bring to the gym died (again), which seemed like a sign that maybe a CNN break was due. I also found myself listening to a little less NPR when I was driving and cooking. I mentioned this in the talk I gave at Pendle Hill last week, along with the caveat that turning off the news was especially difficult for Quakers who care about and want to be engaged in the world. And then I woke up to the news about Haiti and felt that conflict acutely. I don’t want to shut out the suffering, close my heart to the tragic stories that are flooding out of Haiti. On the other hand, I’m not sure I need to see non-stop images of the suffering. I want to fuel my compassion, but not my fear, though I’m not certain of the best way to do this.

I remember reading about a Tibetan monk who, with the Dalai Lama’s encouragement, agreed to participate in a study by American brain scientists. The monk had practiced a special compassion meditation for about twenty years. As a result, the scientists discovered that when shown pictures of people suffering his brain responded differently than other participants in the study. Instead of activating the parts of the brain that register disgust (and maybe fear?), the monk lit up the parts of the brain that register love. The article didn’t spell out his compassion meditation or explain how ordinary people in a busy world can cultivate it, but I assume his practice did not involve a lot of CNN, though obviously the news has motivated many people to donate time or money to help the earthquake victims. For myself, I need to find those practices that cultivate compassion, rather than fear or powerlessness.

Update on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 2:19PM by Eileen Flanagan

P.S. Here's an audio recording of the Pendle Hill talk.

After weeks of the quiet life, I gave two talks this week—not the readings from the book that I’ve gotten pretty confident about, but two different forty-five minute lectures in a row, which is longer than I usually speak without some type of audience participation. Monday night was to an amazing group of parents of children with addictions. Tuesday was to a Pendle Hill audience that included some intimidatingly well-known Quakers, new students at Pendle Hill, and people who were new to both, who came because they had heard about my book. I’m still sorting through what I’ve learned from these two experiences, but it centers around the question of inner preparation. 

I had decided that the themes of fear and letting go were going to be part of both talks, so though the audiences were different, there were some things I wanted to say to both. I had been jotting down ideas for a few weeks and doing some relevant reading. (Thanks to Arthur Fink for his thoughtful post, which you may have missed since it was posted here as a reference, rather than as a comment.) My plan was to spend much of Monday preparing for the Monday night talk and much of Tuesday preparing for Pendle Hill. By Sunday, I felt a low buzz anxiety about the two of them in the back of my head. Then on Sunday night, my daughter got sick, throwing up about fourteen times in all and depriving both her parents of any REM sleep. Obviously, she would not be going to school, which meant I would not be getting the extended quiet I had been counting on. Instead, we watched Legally Blond. 

Although being sick was obviously a bummer for my daughter, it did have one good result for me. I had to totally let go of my desire to plan a perfectly impressive talk for parents who had dealt with such turmoil and fear as I can only imagine. Instead, it put me back in the reality I had known as the parent of toddlers—that I cannot perfectly plan my life or control what my children will do next. This seemed like appropriate inner preparation. I started the talk by telling the story of my sick daughter and had to consult my notes a time or two, since I hadn’t been able to memorize what I wanted to say. The talk seemed well received, and I felt very humble listening to the parents share their own journeys with fear in the face of addiction. It was a powerful reminder of all that is not in our control, as well as a caution that I shouldn’t think I’ve got this parenting thing figured out just because we’ve managed to get as far as middle school. 

The experience Monday made me feel more relaxed about Tuesday, as well. There were some different things I wanted to say to the Pendle Hill audience and a different frame around the talk, which is part of a series on transitions, but there was also some overlap. I spent some time preparing, but spent more time relaxing and clearing my head. 

I had asked two Friends to serve as elders, but they were going to Pendle Hill early that day (and I had been unavailable Monday), so we didn’t talk ahead of time about what I was going to say. Instead we had dinner with other Pendle Hill folk, talked about Chestnut Hill Meeting’s upcoming mortgage discussion (just to put me in touch with some anxiety), and went to the lecture, where they sat on the facing bench with me and held me in the Light (which one of the people new to Quakerism asked about afterwards with great interest). I had told them ahead of time that I was looking for feedback, other than the “Oh, you were wonderful” kind of comments that friends tend to give people after a speech. Aside from the fact that accountability from elders is part of the Quaker tradition, I’ve also been thinking about a funny book on public speaking that said that you’ll never get better unless you hear critical feedback, which people generally won’t volunteer. So after the talk, which went smoothly, we sat down with warm drinks to discuss my speaking. 

These Friends were gentle and indirect and talked more of possibility than explicit critique, but here’s what I came away with: I’ve got the smooth presentation skill of public speaking pretty well developed, but—at least for a Quaker audience—I could work on letting the speech go and opening to the Spirit in the moment, as well as being more vulnerable, which may involve telling more of my own stories and fewer of other people’s. I’m sitting with that challenge and wondering how to prepare for it. Perhaps I need less thinking and more prayer—less preparing in my head and more time with my elders in advance of presentations. That raises a whole host of questions about whom might best help me grow in these ways, but they feel like important questions to ask.

I’m giving two talks next week, both related to coping with fear. (The one at Pendle Hill on Tuesday is open to the public.) Of course, I have some thoughts on this, but I’m wondering what your thoughts are. What has helped you to overcome fear, especially in a time of transition? Is there a story you’d like to share about how fear has hindered you or how facing fear has helped you grow? Would love to hear people’s insights as I’m pondering this myself.