Overcoming Fear - Part 2

For those who did not read my blog last week, here's a brief re-cap of the basic situation: Our cat recently allowed himself to become stuck in a tree because he was afraid to climb down, and my husband rescued him (overcoming his own fear of heights, by the way). This week, our helpful cat has provided me with more fodder.

A couple of days ago, Allen once again went out in the morning, as he does every day, to feed our outside furnace. Max, our now-notorious cat, was high up in a tree, a different tree than he was stuck in last week and about 20 feet further up than in his previous predicament. Allen reports he looked up and said to Max, "I am NOT climbing up that far to get you down." After putting wood in the furnace, Allen noticed Max slowly backing his way down the tree. Coincidence? Maybe. But sometimes I think that cat knows exactly what we're saying.

My observation last week was that often we keep ourselves trapped in circumstances due to our fears. I offer a further observation this week. Sometimes we aid others in staying trapped in their fears, usually without meaning to do so. Our words of caution, while said with good intentions, often squelch a spirit of adventure. I think of children, in particular. When fed a steady stream of 'don't run too fast, you'll fall down' and 'don't jump around so much, you might get hurt,' eventually, what they will hear is 'don't, don't, don't or something bad might happen' which can lead to being locked up in a prison of caution. We should all want to display a good measure of common sense -- wouldn't it be nice if more people did? -- but common sense, taken to an extreme, can overtake freedom. I believe a life of faith should be filled with spontaneous compassion, love and mercy, taking chances along the way, not being constantly worried about being hurt.

Back to Max. Sometimes the right course of action might be to rescue someone, but more often than not, the best that can happen is to help the person who is stuck realize they can usually get unstuck when they let go of fear. Last week, we rescued Max. This week, it was time to say, 'you're on your own, buddy.' He knew it was possible to get down. He overcame his fear and did it.