"There are only two feelings.
Love and fear.
There are only two languages.
Love and fear.
There are only two activities.
Love and fear.
There are only two motives,
two procedures, two frameworks,
two results.
Love and fear.
Love and fear."
-- Michael Leunig
Through the Lens of Love and Fear
This poem has been shared several times in my spiritual direction training recently. Each time, it resonates. Each time, it offers a fresh lens through which to reflect on my own actions and on what's happening in the world around me. Where am I acting from love? And where am I acting from fear?
This year, the poem is also shaping how I'm reading the Holy Week stories. Underneath the words, the emotions, and events, I see both love and fear.
When Jesus enters Jerusalem and the crowds shout "Hosanna," I see love and hope woven together. Later in the week, when the crowds call for his death, I see fear — fear of Rome's potential for retaliation, fear of change and disruption.
When Peter denies knowing Jesus, I see fear again. If this is happening to Jesus, what might happen to Peter if he's recognized as one of his followers? And when Joseph of Arimathea works up the courage to ask for Jesus' body so he can bury it, I see love again — love mingled with grief.
Holy Week reminds me: love and fear can be found in every story, every choice, every moment.
If they are present in these sacred stories, they invite us to consider how they shape our own stories. What choices are driven by fear? Which ones come from love?
Wild Wisdom: Bonobos and the Power of Space
There is more than enough happening in our world today to push us towards fear. But love is present, too. And if love is present, then every moment has the potential for love.
So how do we choose love — especially when the pressures of life and the state of the world can nudge us toward fear in ways we may not even realize?
Perhaps our bonobo kin can help us. In her Lenten devotional Wild Hope, Gayle Boss tells how, long ago, apes crossed a sediment bridge in the Congo Basin. After the bridge eroded, they evolved differently. On one side, the apes competed with gorillas, developing into more aggressive chimpanzees. On the other side, where there was no competition, the apes evolved into bonobos — more gentle, social, and cooperative.
The river's flow created space. And in that space, bonobos could direct their energy toward relationships and community — toward love, instead of fear. That's the difference space can make.
A Space Where Love Can Grow
Viktor Frankl is often attributed as saying, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
In stressful moments, when emotions run high, it's easy to feel as though our reactions are automatic. But there is always a space — a pause — between what we feel and how we respond. That space is where love can grow. It's not that we'll never feel fear. But in this space, we can choose to respond with love.
This is wisdom found in contemplative traditions throughout the ages. Prayer, meditation, and spiritual practices help us cultivate that inner space — space to notice, reflect, and respond with love.
We see this in Jesus, too. On the night before his death, fearful of what lies ahead, he went to a garden to pray. He names his fear honestly before God. In that space, he reorients with Spirit's unending flow of love. And in his final hours, even as others act from fear, Jesus chooses again and again to act with love.
As Richard Rohr writes in Everything Belongs: "For Jesus prayer seems to be a matter of waiting in love. Returning to love. Trusting that love is the bottom stream of reality. That's why prayer isn't primarily words: it's primarily a place, an attitude, a stance."
A space for stepping into love's flow.
Stepping Into Love's Flow
So this Holy Week, I'm wondering: where are love and fear showing up in me? Where do I need to cultivate space to acknowledge what I'm feeling--and to step into Spirit's flow, choosing a more loving response?
Creating space isn't always easy. Even though I know how helpful it is to pause and breathe — even to simply notice what I'm feeling — I still struggle to do it in the moment. But the point isn't perfection. The point is to keep trying.
If it's hard for you too, you're not alone.
What space do you need or long for right now? Where might you find it? Maybe in prayer, in a walk, through creativity, in a song, or in a few deep breaths?
One of the beauties of the Holy Week story is this: even in fear, even in struggle, even in failure or grief, God is with us. And there is always space to begin again, and step into love's flow.