I had a strange dream one night last week. I can’t remember whether I was a child in the dream, or an adult. But I do know that I was living in one of my childhood homes (there were many). I grew up in the small town of Rosedale, Mississippi. For five and a half years of my life, from age five until eleven and a half, my family lived “out in the country” on a piece of land referred to as Mickey Dattel’s Place.
The land was so named because it was owned by Mickey Dattel, the mayor of Rosedale. All these years later I often dream of the house on Mickey Dattel’s Place, and in most of the dreams, the house, which was basically a five-room shack with electricity but no running water, has been renovated and looks modern. In some of the dreams, the entire piece of land has been turned into a lovely subdivision.
The strange thing about last week’s dream, however, is that the dream took place outside in the yard rather than inside the house as most of my Back-Living-On-Mickey-Dattels-Place dreams usually do. The other strange thing about the dream is that my mother was outside doing yardwork, which is something she never did. The only “yardwork” she ever did was to hang wet clothes on the clotheslines. It was the job of us “little kids” to take the clothes off the lines after they dried. In this dream, there was an abundance of spring growth all over the yard—growth that had, oddly enough, resulted from a large snow storm. (In case you’re wondering, it doesn’t snow in Mississippi in the spring. At least, not that I ever recall.)
In the dream, as my mother and I were sloshing through the abundant new foliage (sloshing, because the ground was soaked), we suddenly came upon a large cat that looked like a lion without a mane. The cat didn’t look as strong as a lion, but it did appear as threatening as it slinked around in the tall grass.
I. Was. Terrified.
But my mother wasn’t. She continued about her work in the yard as if the cat-lion-creature wasn’t there. Instead of doing my work, I kept my eye on the cat-that-was-as-scary-as-a-lion. My mother said that if the cat was bothering me, then I should get rid of it by shooing it away. I told her that I was afraid that the cat would attack me. She agreed, but said that if I wanted to not be afraid anymore, I had to get rid of the cat. Then she picked up a large stick from the yard debris and headed toward the cat. I was so afraid for her that I asked her not to bother the lion-looking cat.
“We could just ignore it,” I pleaded.
She countered, “If you think it’s dangerous, you don’t want to wait for it to come after you. You need to get rid of it, first.”
I just knew that if my mom provoked the cat, the cat would attack her.
And, it did.
I woke with a jolt just as the large cat stood and grabbed my mom. In the dream I was afraid. But in the real world, instead of being afraid, I grasped the meaning of the dream: Facing my fears might prove painful, but face them I must. (If my mother were still alive, I might have interpreted the dream differently.)
Writing this post reminded me of the proverb: “The sluggard saith, There is a lion in the way.” In this respect, I could change it and say, “The fearful saith, There is a lion in the way.” And when there is a lion in the way, we’re too worried to do our work. Instead of focusing on our work, we’re keeping our eyes on the lion—whatever that lion might be.
I know exactly what that lion is for me, and I know I must face it. I cannot be productive as long as I allow it to hold me back.
One thing I know about my mother is that she worried a lot while she was raising us. And indeed she should have. She was a single mom for the duration of raising her twelve children and, at times, a few of her grandchildren. We rarely had food, clothing, and shelter, and we depended on the help of government welfare programs to sustain us. But…
Just like in my dream, my mother faced her fears head on. As an adult, I look back over those years with wonder. How did she survive? What gave her the strength? I can only imagine how afraid she might have been on those long days out there “in the country” alone while all her children were in school and while there was not a single neighbor with which to wave hello. I know I would have been afraid….
I don’t think my mother was fearless. I think she simply did what she had to do. She persevered. And that’s the best I can do, because I don’t know how to be completely fearless. I have tried. I have succeeded in many areas of my life. But in some areas I’m still afraid, and I know that the fear is holding me back.
So how do we live fearlessly?
Friends, we don’t, entirely. We face those fears, and we fight those fears, in order to do the work that we have set our hearts on doing.
Don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong. ~ Ella Fitzgerald