No gentle acknowledgments of fear or gradual empowerment of self into fearlessness in John’s 21st step! He doesn’t mince words. Fear, he tells us, is outright “unmanly;” it is nothing else but “cowardice, the child of vainglory, the daughter of unbelief.”
Fear is not one-dimensional. This short, 2-page chapter uncovers different manifestations of fear in our souls and shows the price it exacts from our lives.
“Fear is danger tasted in advance,” we are told. How many of our daily anxieties stem from our thoughts getting ahead of us– anticipating, imagining or fleshing out different scenarios of future humiliation and failure– until our mental constructs become the reality we inhabit? John is light years ahead of psychotherapy and other treatments of mental disorders, including more recent specializations in anxiety disorders and phobias. He sees fear as stemming from faulty thought processes that treat imagined truths as actual truths. Yet precisely because fear is generated by something that does not actually exist in the present, John stares it in the face rather than cajoling it, and calls it an act of cowardice.
In most steps, John prescribes “treatments” for passions and demonstrates what freedom from them is like through a series of paradoxes. Just as, in a previous chapter, the poor man was shown to be actually rich because he was freed of cares, the man who fears God is not afraid of anything other than Him, while the man who is not afraid of God is afraid of his “own shadow.” The fear of God frees us from fear.
Fear is the result of faithlessness, we are told. Without faith we assume full responsibility for outcomes that matter to us, and live in constant anxiety over the possibility of our failure. We don’t have to go far. As parents, many of us anxiously look for opportunities to deliver lectures, make hints, and push conclusions in conversations with our children. How could we possibly relax into the experience of just loving them when it is clearly up to us to steer them in the right career path or opinion? Or how can anyone settle down in a conversation and actually listen to what others are saying , when so much care must be taken to ensure that we make the right impression and not let others get the upper hand? The greater our investment in outcomes, and the greater our belief in our power to control them, the greater our fear of failure! Living in fear and anxiety casts a shadow over our ability to love fully, unconditionally and in the present.
This is why vainglory is a spring of constant fear. If our happiness depends on praise, admiration, status, material possessions and other external manifestations of value, our soul becomes the breeding ground of fear; fear of losing or never achieving them can dominate our lives. Cowards, above all, are vainglorious.
All previous chapters echo in various ways the contrast between passions and freedom. In the chapter on poverty we are told that “poverty “is resignation from care…. It is life without anxiety and travels light, far from sorrow and faithful to the commandments…A poor man is lord of the world”(p. 189).” The virtue of chastity gives us “holy simplicity [as] a breastplate against the cunning of evil demons” (p. 183). If we have nothing, there can be no temptation of attachment or fear of loss. Fear in this step is not exactly a passion but the result of passions like vainglory and pride. To root it out you have to trace its origins in the darkest crevices of your soul and confront them head on.
John’s advice on how to confront our fears fully resonates with modern psychology: “Do not hesitate to go in the dark of the night to those places where you are normally frightened. The slightest concession to this weakness means that this childish and absurd malady will grow old.” But there are also major differences between psychology and ascetic spirituality with interesting implications.
Overcoming Fear
Unlike modern psychology, however, we don’t just draw on our own resources to fight it. Instead, we “put on the armor of prayer” and clothe ourselves with trust in God. Once again, John shows a connection between the spiritual and physical dimensions of prayer to God, conjuring up an image of child-like surrender: “when you reach the spot, stretch out your hands and flog your enemies with the name of Jesus…He who has conquered cowardice has clearly dedicated his life and soul to God.”
Moreover, unlike modern psychology, fear is not simply a mental disorder to be treated but a moral and spiritual illness to be conquered: “…it is the barrenness of soul [and not] the darkness or the emptiness of place which gives the demons power over us.” And it is in the soul that healing takes place. John’s compassionate view of mankind, however, always reminds us that we don’t have to aim at instantaneous transformation but accept a path of small and gradual steps: “If your soul is unafraid even when the body is terrified then you are close to being healed. “
A quote from a different translation of the Ladder in a footnote gives us a vision of what total freedom from fear is like; not only freedom from expectations but eagerly embracing “all unexpected events with a contrite heart. “
Readings in Philokalia 