Events

  Sunday 15th June
10am Queens Road Unitarian Free Church, Urmston
11.30am Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel, Altrincham
11.30am on Zoom ID 841 9082 8195 no password required

The service will explores fear and fright and finding the courage to overcome debilitating fear. How at times it can feel like we are living in an episode of the "Twilight Zone", or "Stranger Things", or "Tales of the Unexpected". 

How there is not only a danger of fear, but an exciting allure too. How the fright instinct is a vital part of our animal heart. How courage, love and integrity are vital parts of humanity too and that they enable us to find the courage to truly be.

All are most welcome...Come as you are, exactly as you are...but do not expect to leave in exactly the same condition...

The following are extracts from the service...

I felt like I was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie the other evening. A friend had come round. After a while I noticed some crows from my window. They were making quite a racket; it was quite disturbing. Molly was certainly agitated. I said to my friend, it feels a bit like that Hitchcock movie “The Birds”, it was strangely disturbing. After a while Molly got really agitated and began barking at the door. I calmed her down, but she wasn’t happy. My friend eventually left, as he did Molly shot outside with him. There by the door was a crow. Molly investigated but didn’t attack it. It wandered into the garden whilst the other crows squawked and flew around. I directed Molly inside and my friend stood around. As he did the largest crow swooped down, pecked at his head and flew off. It was obviously attempting to protect its fallen friend. My friend was in a state of shock and bleeding from his scalp. It was quite disturbing. He texted his mother, who he cares for. She was quite upset with him, as she thought he was joking with her. While all this was going on she had been sat at home, with a friend who was taking care of her, they had been watching “The Birds” by Alfred Hitchcock.

“Living in the Twilight Zone”?

Fear has the power to inhibit but it also has the power of allure. I remember those terrifying public information broadcasts from the 1970’s, images that still stay with me, about the dangers of railway lines, and electric pylons and of course “Lonely Water”, with the terrifying voice on Donald Pleasence. Not that we headed the dangers, in many ways it kind of made them more enchanting for me and my friends. When I think of the more exciting childhood memories they were all laced with danger...

The cinematic childhood memory that haunted me the most though was a Saturday night episode of “Hammer House of Horror”. It was a werewolf tale that vividly remains within my psyche. The image that had the greatest impact was of the beast at the window in the black of night and the person turning round and it being in the room with them. This was etched on my memory for years and to such an extent that I never dared look out through the glass of my room after dark. Even to this day there is a part of me that feels nervous if I look through “glass darkly”. A feeling re-felt with those crows the other evening.

There is a power and an allure in fear. It is something everyone experiences. It can overtake the rational mind and many exploit it in others. A feeling that seems to intensify in this age of muti-media and instant 24 hour rolling news. There are forces that feed fear and paranoia in folk, a power that at times can control people’s lives, beyond all reason. It can cause deep distrust and keep people penned in at home and paralysed.

Fear comes in many forms. We need not fear fear in and of itself. It is a vital part of our make-up, of our animal heart. It sets the pulse racing and heightens our awareness. Fright is a vital instinct. It points to danger; it’s a warning signal. That said there are other forms of fear which are not so useful. Perhaps the most debilitating of all is dread.

Dread and other forms of debilitating fear can overwhelm us and lead to crippling forms of anxiety which can inhibit us from simply living and being. When we are overcome by such emotions everything can appear bleak; our senses become dulled; it drains all the colour and taste from life. This leads to us projecting our anxiety and worry onto everything that we do in life; it takes the very life out of living and leads to abject misery. It drags us into pits of depression and traps us in the very things that we believe protect us from present dangers. As a result, we go deeper into ourselves and get lost and trapped in our black holes of doom and gloom. It can be very difficult to find our way out of these states of being. It sucks the life out of us and stops us being who we really are, all that we can be...

...So how do we overcome the power of this debilitating fear? How do we find the courage just to be? Something I experienced once again on Monday.

Well I have discovered that it is not complicated. All it takes is just a little faith and a little love to create the courage just be. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Which of course it is, but it is far from easy...

...This is where we find the courage to truly be, to overcome the power of unnatural fear, through living in and through love, truth and integrity. Love will always overcome fear; love will always enable us to find the courage to truly be all that we can be. Again as the verse depicts, it is love that enabled the picket to stand in the freezing cold, to stand up for what they believed in; it is love that motivated the mother to sacrifice herself for her children; it is love that enabled both Jesus and Socrates to make their ultimate sacrifices.

We will always know the emotion of fear; we will always feel fear. We need it, fear is a natural instinct. That said we need not be enslaved by it. We need not fear the crows perched above us. To be free all we need do is live in integrity, live in love and the courage to simply be will shine, from our very being. In doing so not only do we liberate ourselves, but we will become a light to others who in turn may be inspired to liberate themselves and others too.