Do you ever look back at past demons in your life? You know those things that used to trouble you but now maybe seem ridiculous. For many it was the monster that was either under you bed or in the attic. I remember a couple of demons I had that make me laugh now.
One of my demons for awhile was the dreaded tsetse fly. I saw a film in school about how the tsetse would give people sleeping disease and mess up the animals as well. I am not sure if I was drifting off when the said it was only in Africa or I just assumed the flies in Africa could fly to southern Minnesota. I do know the effect was a short, but intense fear of all flies for awhile. The film we saw showed people who were essentially turned into zombies after the fly bit them and I most definitely wanted to avoid this horrid end. So I avoided flies as much as I could for a stretch.
I also remember another incident involving an alien. There was a stretch growing up – maybe in the mid to early seventies where UFO’s were being sighted with regularity. I think it was right after streaking was big but before bicentennial fever took over. Anyway, with very regular reports of UFOs and abductions in the news, a relatively young kid was naturally fearful when going out by himself at dark. About this same time I started a morning paper route. I’d wake up before six in the morning and deliver about 12 StarTribune newspapers over about a two mile route (I’d hate to calculate my wage for that gig).
Anyway, one morning I am picking up my bundle of papers and I look back at our garage window and there were three lights looking back at me. As I stared at the eyes and nose of an alien in our garage, I was paralyzed with fear. As I moved the eyes seemed to follow me. I don’t know how long it took me to figure out that the eyes were a by-product of the street light and a pine tree but I am pretty sure people got their paper late that morning.
I grew out of these fears and others but think about to what extent I’ve replaced them with other fears that may be an equal waste of energy. Maybe the larger question is for all of us, what is it we should fear if we have faith. Should we really fear losing money in the stock market or having enough money to retire or not achieving career advancement? If we are, as Christians, striving to be more Christ like, maybe the question is what would Jesus fear? Perhaps this is an unfair question given we are not divine, but I tend to think many of us fear or worry too much about things that don’t matter.
