Peace Sunday 2010

Fear not, for I am with you. Isaiah 41:10

When my children were in elementary school, they realized that if an intruder came to our house, I wouldn't fight for them (or to defend them). I explained, "There are three responses to fear. The first is flight-getting away as quickly as possible. You children are the most important things in my life and I refuse to run and leave you behind." The children were comforted just a bit. "The second response is fight. Take a look at me-I'm a middle-aged, out-of-shape woman. What chance would I have against a strong person who came to our house to hurt us?" They giggled. "And what if that person had a weapon? I'd be even less able to fight them off." Well, they wondered, what if I had a gun? "It's highly unlikely that I would be able to reach my gun and put the bullets in before the person would hurt someone. Plus, you know that guns in the house are more likely to hurt family members than an intruder." The kids were now puzzled-what response was left? "The third response is to rely on God for a creative way to save you children, me, and the intruder from doing anything that hurts anyone. So every day I'm trying to learn more about how to listen to God so that in a very scary time we'll already have a relationship I can depend on." Susan Mark Landis, denominational minister for peace and justice

Fear is the result of an unconscious process in the brain that can take two forms sometimes called the low and high roads. The low road is a fast reaction that acts first and then surveys the scene more deeply. The high road takes more time to size up the situation before delivering its take on what just happened.

A stimulus can be anything from a bump in the night to a spider to the perceived threat of waves of new immigrants sweeping up valuable jobs. In the low road approach, as soon as a stimulus is sensed, this data is sent to the thalamus. The thalamus doesn't know dangerous signals from harmless signals, so it plays it safe and delivers everything it receives to the amygdala. The amygdala is what takes action, telling the hypothalamus to kick start fight-or-flight procedures designed to save one's life should the stimulus actually be a threat.

In the high road, the thalamus takes the time to involve the hippocampus and sensory cortex, and mulls over just what this stimulus might be. The sensory cortex analyzes the thalamus data and if there is potential for multiple interpretations, everything is packaged up and sent to the hippocampus to establish context by comparing this stimulus both to other messages it is receiving and previously analyzed stimuli. Taking the sound of wind and the too-light patio furniture you probably should not have purchased at that end of season sale into account, that bump in the night now does not seem like so much of a threat. The hippocampus then sends its own message to the amygdala, which passes on the all-clear to the hypothalamus to back off any fight-or-flight preparations it may be preparing. All roads lead to the hypothalamus, gatekeeper of fight-or-flight.

This can all happen in the time it takes to suck in all the air in the room when you see great aunt Margaret's vase she carried all the way from the old family farm in Oklahoma to California during the Great Depression fall from that shelf you shouldn't have put it on in the first place all the way to floor but somehow not shatter into a million tiny pieces of regret and instead only bounce a few miraculous times.

Sensory data from the stimulus goes down both roads simultaneously; the high road just takes a little longer, resulting in a few moments of initial, all-consuming terror.

"Fear motivates us for a moment, but when the immediate perception of the threat is passed, it subsides. Love is inexhaustible, flowing from the very heart of God. Fear can lead to paralysis and despair as often as it leads to action. Love gives us the strength to continue to fight for what we love, and to make great personal sacrifices for the sake of our beloved." - Janet L. Parker, pastor for parish life at Rock Spring Congregational Untied Church of Christ, Arlington, Virginia, in Sojourners magazine, December 2009.

Sticking to the lectionary instead? That's okay. Leo Hartshorn's recent booklet "The economic crisis and the divine economy: A discussion guide for congregations" is a complementary resource to that Sunday's Gospel text (Luke 16:1-13), the parable of the shrewd manager. In addition, past Peace Sundays in 2005 and 2007 also touched on financial themes.

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