Through the Fear

Just as faith is not faith without doubt, so courage is not really courage without fear.  In the first few days of the Camino, undoubtedly while I was struggling up a hill, and feeling rather like my body was going to quit on me, I had the thought that I could just quit.  I could call it off, let my physical weakness get the best of me and just go home.  I could have done that, but I didn't.  As my body got stronger though I came to see that the impulse to quit was not actually very much about physical weakness, it was quite simply about fear, specifically fear of failure.
Somewhere in my mind there is this (probably unhealthy) idea that my body is not really that important.  I have never been an athlete, or a physical specimen, my self worth has always derived more from what I could do with my mind (and perhaps even my spirit) than what I could do with my body. My forays into the world of physical excellence have been short lived and never really that excellent.  I've been overweight and asthmatic for most of my life, and I realized on the side of that hill that I had always let that give me an excuse for giving up.  I had never done anything physically impressive, and at the very least the Camino was going to be that: physically impressive.
I have mentioned all of this before, but it bears repeating, because you need to know that I was not particularly afraid of failing physically.  The fear was that I might fail spiritually.  My resolve might break, I might not be able to finish this trip because of what was going on in my head and heart rather than because of my legs and lungs.  If my body let me down it would just be the latest in a rather long litany of failures and flops, but if I simply lost my nerve?  Well that would be unacceptable.
Edwin Friedman, author of the seminal family systems work Generation to Generation, was working on a book called Failure of Nerve, when he passed away.  The book (finished by his son and others) in it's best sections examines the way systems fail because of fear, primarily the fear that leaders have, but acknowledging that leaders are technically and really figureheads for the dysfunction of a system.  Energy is contagious, if a system is anxious it will seek and most likely find leaders who reflect that anxiety.  If a system is bold and generative, it will probably also find bold and generative leaders.  And leaders can change systems for better or worse, and systems (and this I think is rather the more powerful force, but I suppose I'm biased) can change leaders for better or worse.
In church terms, one has several roles to fill in leadership: prophet and priest, (some try king, but that should probably be left to God).  Prophet is the role that notices the wrong and addresses the struggles, prophets can either "afflict the comfortable, or comfort the afflicted," but they never simply accept the status quo.  The priestly function, however, is not into rocking the boat.  The priest is inherently invested in keeping things smooth and steady.  Let the traditions that give us roots hold us steady, let the rituals and practices of our faith anchor us in the storm of life.
You might read these descriptions and think I am expressing a preference for one or the other, depending on your personal resonance, but I assure you, I fully recognize the necessity of both roles.  The problem that exists is that neither role is immune from the anxiety of the system, and both can become perverse as a result of that anxiety.  "Fear is the mind killer," says a fictional mantra from Frank Herbert's Dune.  Indeed fear kills the faculty of rational thought, but it also squashes vision, it also shortens the perspective to consider only the most immediate concerns.  Fear seeks out enemies and threats, and if it finds none, it will invent them, real and imaginary.
The prophet cannot speak truly, nor can the priest serve truly, when the system is overrun with fear.  So how can one change the system?  If it is already fearful and anxious, how does one change it?  It is bigger than you are.
The first step is vision, having a idea that gives you a destination and some guiding principles.
Then you need to figure out your needs: knowledge, skills, and perhaps most importantly helpers and supporters.  You need others who will go with you, because you will never change an anxious and fearful system by yourself.
You need to understand that failure is an option: your knowledge can be incomplete,  your skills inadequate and your helpers and supporters inconstant, but your nerve cannot fail.  Learn from your failures, adjust your plans, find new helpers, whatever you need to do, but do not let your courage fail, do not let the fear get the better of you.
That said, flexibility and empathy are important characteristics.  Seek to understand your enemies, pray for those who persecute you and you will find this leads to an ability to bend but not break.  I know, this sounds weird even to people who have spent time wrestling with Jesus' teachings on the subject.  And it sounds especially troubling when you feel like your in a "fight or flight" confrontation, because fear is almost always winning the battle.
Mercy, forgiveness and grace are most often where the rubber hits the road and where the nerve most often fails us.  It's self defense.  It's the only sensible thing to do for the good of the whole.  These are sentiments that are often attached to acts of violence.  I won't judge their validity in the secular world, but in the community of God's people they ring awfully hollow.