It was 1962. I was a young teacher, not quite two years on the job. The place was Takoma Park Junior High School. I was full of vim, vigor and enthusiasm. As an Art teacher, I thought it my particular responsibility to reach some of those who were academically challenged. So I created a curriculum that was particularly popular with that crowd, but left the principal clicking his tongue and occasionally shaking a finger. For those who were more able, the also young English teacher and I put our curriculums together so that the two disciplines could support one another. We were having a wonderful time.

Then came the announcement. All the teachers were to meet that day after the students left. It was important, so attendance was mandatory.

It was the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For weeks, maybe months, we had been practicing air raid drills. We all knew where to go when the siren sounded, we knew how to position ourselves. But this day we were told that there was great fear of a bomb threat because we were in or near the U S Capital. We needed to expect an attack at any time and we needed to know what to do. The government had provided all the schools with bags of lime. Anyone who survived was to use this on the bodies to lessen the spread of disease and facilitate decomposition. And, we were to keep this information secret so as not to incite hysteria.

I found that information so horrible that I could not deal with it. I left the meeting quite shaken. But as a young adult I had two major characteristics or realities. First, as a typical young adult, I felt deep inside that I was invulnerable. Young adults are like that. They may take incredible risks because they think nothing will happen to them. I was also quite naïve. And so, I moved fairly quickly to "This just will not happen." As I look back on it now, it was probably a good coping mechanism. The other thing I remember thinking was: If I survived, I do not know whether or not I could do what they were telling me to do.

That story has been buried somewhere in my subconscious for years. I never want to visit it, so it stays in there, all covered up, so I will not run into it unexpectedly. Recently, the story resurfaced. I did not welcome it, but it would not go away.

It came, I think, because of conversations during the week we were thrust into code orange. There were expressions of disbelief at what was happening. There was confusion, anxiety, fear, and even dread. And there was a sense that we had never experienced anything like this before. This latter one became the shovel that unearthed my unwelcome story. Since then, we have all read of or been part of safety precautions at our work, in the schools and other places. This past week, we on staff were informed of procedures for CCC.

This time around I am experiencing the threat of disaster with a good deal of age on me. The young adult invulnerability is long gone and I am feeling very vulnerable. That sense of vulnerability allows fear to not only seep in but to run in and to stay in my construct of reality. I seem to be pitching about on a rough sea. And, I sensed from my conversations that many of you might be feeling the same way. Indeed, we have been on a very rough sea from 911 to now.

And I am not nearly so naïve as I was as a young adult. As a matter of fact, I am a bit crusty now and suspect of many things. I have lived long enough and read enough to know that governments take certain actions and disseminate certain kinds of information to get their countries to be willing to go to war. And so I look at the current information with a jaundiced eye. And I wonder just what is behind not only the kind of information, but the way it is shared and particularly the timing. And as I ponder this I discover that suspicion is now accompanied by anger. I am angry that our government might be scaring us to get us ready for war and I am angry that the powers that be think that I am stupid enough to buy it.

And so, what am I to do? What are we to do? Where do we go from here when we discover as Peter did that all that lies before us may not be a bed of roses, and in fact we live in a world filled with a great deal of pain, injustice and evil? How do we deal with fear, anxiety, vulnerability, and even anger? Well, anger is perhaps the easiest, as one can give voice to it and set up a howl. Your voice may find accompaniment and then even find an ear. But the others are harder, and they infect us as plagues as surely as the lepers and others who came to Jesus for healing were plagued. The thing about all those persons is that they sought help and healing from the faith source or resource around them. They discovered that nothing difficult or even very significant was required of them. They only needed to be open to and willing to receive the healing. After the healing, they found a path to follow.

We too have great spiritual and faith resources available to us. We have a myriad of scriptural resources available; many of them already committed to memory. I think immediately of the 23^rd psalm, and "perfect love casts out fear", and "…Nothing can separate us from the love of God…" You probably have favorites of your own. And we also have stories of people, such as Sarah and Abraham that remind us that God is engaged with humanity. We are not witnesses to a God who set the world going in the distant past and left us to our own devices. We, individually and collectively are witnesses to a God who loves us, communicates with us, and willingly brings us into relationship. This relationship, though demanding, is full of promise and wonderful surprises.

That relationship is available to us through prayer and meditation. That is still a wonderful gift and surprise for me. I continue under the illusion that I must work at prayer and meditation. And so I am always amazed that all it takes is a surrendering to it. I think that prayer and meditation must require something harder and involving much more effort. To sit, and be and let God come to me is such a major miracle for me. And it is particularly powerful when experienced in community. Somehow, the sharing with others along the journey enhances my experience.

A few weeks ago, Ann Marshall led the Covenant Class session on Prayer and Meditation. Both mentors and class members were there. Frank Caflisch is a mentor. He participated and loved it and the kids. Frank has constant pain in his hip, but both he and his daughter told me that all he could talk about that evening was how wonderful the meditation was and how much he liked the kids. There was not one complaint about pain that whole evening.

If we are willing to rest into wholeness, and let ourselves live into healthy spiritual ways, we are much more able to withstand whatever the world inflicts upon us. With a healthy spiritual base we are much harder to scare. With friends of faith and a strong community of faith the anxiety cannot overtake us. For God chooses to touch our world with compassion. God freely offers the wholeness and strength we need. With faith, we are not bound by fear but are led along a footpath of grace, promise and even hope. Along that way, we live out our lives in the very presence of God. And just when we, like Abraham and Sarah, think that there is no future for us, that we cannot possibly accomplish what is required of us, God is there with one more big surprise, offering us future in abundance, in a package that is wrapped in covenant love.