on bowdlerizing fear

I’m not your kind of face your fear, jump-off-a-bridge-with-an-elastic-band-on-your-ankles sort of dude. Kudos to some of my daughters and some of my first cousins once removed in law (and where does the “s” belong in that construction?) and I guess anyone else who faces their fear and does that. Many bungy gurus feature variations of “face your fears” themes in their advertising, and I believe AJ Hackett Bungy (yeah, I promise I’m not being paid for this) are featuring my current whare karakia in a publicity film exploring in part the spiritual dimension of facing that fear. But I’m simply not brave enough. 

Heights and me.

Yeah nah. As I once said to my niece's and nephews in laws' cousins (and where go the plural and its apostrophes there?) paying for such escapades escalates fear to high enough levels, thanks. 

But I guess when rental companies say you can take their cars on any road except, then the wet paint syndrome kicks in. It was years ago, and I read it after I went from Auckland Airport to Russell and back to Whangarei one afternoon. Oops. The Russell Back Rd, which I took to spice up the return route, was verboten. Goodness knows why … sure it was dirt and there were a couple of steep banks but hardly scarier than some parking buildings. It was the 1980s, though, I guess, and kiwis were still paranoid about incompetent and murderous French terrorists popping up on the edge of Tai Tokerau. It was raining heavily that day back in 1988 and I didn’t see any frogpersons (no pun intended) lurking around, so I accidentally ticked that illicit road off, and survived to tell the tale. 

The second, Ninety Mile Beach (a gazetted road), I covered some years later in an aged and borrowed Subaru wagon. The aged vehicle was revelling in what was supposed to be its last week of active duty. It did so well it was given a couple of extra years after that. My life had taken a few personnel changes by then, but the principle was the same: head back to places of backstory and find a few adventures there. The Ninety Mile Beach was tickled off in the Subaru we called “Legend.”

But what of the third? As I noted here a few weeks back I’ve taken a turn down in the Deep South. Yeah, in bungy country, you could say. And the third verboten track is on my doorstep: Skippers, here I come. Though first I had to take a trial run out the Macetown Road. That probably wouldn’t have thrilled rental car companies, either, but Chuck is my truck. At any rate it wasn’t too terrifying. 

So, on to Skippers. And to my surprise it was a doddle. Or mostly it was. Though there is that  famous  bridge to focus the mind. The hundred metre drop  rather does that. But basically Skippers is a doddle, and I knocked the bugger off without too much terror (yes, that is the same bridge, albeit with someone else on it. The passengers walked). 

It was on the way home, though, that I encountered my parable. Because, disappointed by Skippers’ terror levels, I noticed another road, and wondered where it went.  Of course I turned up it ... and it went up.

And up. And yes that is the same bridge far below. Very far below. And the road is not terribly wide. It all focusses the mind most wondrously. 

I’m not into bungy jumping, or even climbing ladders, but there is no doubt a 700 metre drop and a not terribly sophisticated looking road can raise the adrenaline levels to a reasonable degree. And it did. It took a long time before I overcame my fears of height and inched my way around the corner.

Which is really the point of all this.  Because fear. There was no way I was going to leap into the car and practice my drifting on that precipice. It probably wasn’t epically terrifying, but it was for this little black duck. It was fear. Seven hundred metres above a bridge one hundred metres above the river. 

When I was a teenage atheist I was slightly puzzled by a fetish displayed by some Christians, adamant that the word translated "fear" in much of the Judaeo-Christian scripture didn’t mean that at all. Awe, maybe. Love, even. But a nice God doesn’t generate fear.

Nice? Like an English cucumber sandwich? 

No. 

I was terrified, 40 years later, by that bluff far above the Skippers Road. Far more than awed. And, as Tina Turner might say, what’s love got to do with it? I did not love that precipice. 

I respectfully suggest that fear is a thing. Aslan, as C. S. Lewis told us, and I have often stolen from him, is not a tame lion.

Aslan roars. 

I’m sorry, but the Creator-Redeemer-Judger of the Judaeo-Christian scripture is no doddle. We may choose not to believe such a being exists: I think that’s a far more honourable decision than turning a lion into a pussy cat. I disagree vehemently with those who think “God” is some bearded ogre in the sky punishing anyone who lives in other than an Adam, Eve and the baby boys (and where did the grand kids come from?) nest.  On the other hand I disagree vehemently with those whose sole interpretation of the biblical text seems to be focussed on who does what with their wobbly bits.  

But on a third hand I disagree equally vehemently with those who think the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a benevolent celestial purveyor of candy floss and cuddles. Those who take bits out of the bible because they look a bit grumpy, because they look not terribly cucumber sandwiches and Earl Grey Tea. 

Because by God, if there is a celestial Creator just beyond my sight and understanding, then I sure as whatever am not going to trivialize Her-Him with fluff of any sort. Not the fluff of lovey-dovey "God and his little boy Jesus are my mates" saccharinity. Not the insidious God likes me because I drive a Prius saccharinity. I am going to be so bloody focussed that I inch ... No: I micro-milli-inch my movements in the presence of that fearful, terrifying being. I am going to flat-on-my-face-bloody-terrified quiver in the place of that Divine Being. Far more terrified than I was hundreds of metres above the Skippers bridge. 

Oh yes. 

Of course the Judaeo-Christian scriptures indicate that isn’t the end of the story. Yes, they reveal a brutal method, a bloodied cross by which that God enters into and transforms my terror into dancing. But I, sure as that God (if such a being exists) flung stars across the heavens, am not going to sashay up to Him-Her with an ever so confident “Hey, Sis-Bro, didn’t we do good? Didn’t we sanitize your story and make it all sweet? Aren’t we great, getting rid of that blood and guts and fear so you became easy to swallow? You and me Sis-Bro. We did it.”

Because I think that the Lion of Judah might roar. An acrophobe’s terror of a precipice in central Otago ain’t nothing compared to the roar of the Creator narrated in the Judaeo-Christian scriptures. If there is a God I sure as whatever don’t want to chance that roar.