A Scarlet Letter

Jesus says in Matthew 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life” (ESV).

Paul writes in Philippians 4: 6 “do not be anxious about anything” (ESV). 

A wall plaque posted behind my computer screen advises:   “Let your faith be bigger than your fear.”

Rejecting fear doesn’t mean we have to necessarily reject safety.  Safety is important. I fasten my seat belts for even the shortest trip in my car. But are we sometimes overly safety conscious?

The late Rabbi Edwin Friedman offers we live “in a ‘seatbelt society’ more oriented toward safety than adventure.” Let's bookmark that thought briefly and return to it in a few lines. 

I interact with many where one of the harshest direct criticisms is, “you are an anxious presence.” Those words have, or are expected to have, a mystical, “red letter”, scriptural authority.

Immediate penance and repentance is expected when this is uttered. Immediate!

Hester Prynne, Hawthorne’s heroine in The Scarlet Letter, was required to wear on her dress a Scarlet A, for adulteress. 

In my clergy leadership world the Scarlet A is for anxious, and within that world we avoid that A as if anxiety were synonymous with adultery.

Here is the issue: who gets to define what anxiety is? 

Anxiety might actually be a reaction to another’s desire for urgency.

Urgency is required to bring about change.

Some of that change could be altering the status quo.

Anxiety is often, not always, but often, driven by our preference to hang on to the status quo.

Is it a good idea to let any one person be the definer of what is anxiety?

Returning to Friedman, he urges us not to give excess power to the most anxious presence in the room. I posit conversely should the one in the room with the highest preference in the status quo decide what anxiety is?

If we don’t want to allow the most anxious presence to have the power, I don’t wish to empower one person to define what anxiety is.

Honest disagreement may emerge but a dismissal with the remark, ‘you are just an anxious presence’ needs to be expunged from our ‘compleat’ leadership tool belt. 

Your anxiety may be my urgency. Your anxiety may be my raising the temperature in the room to bring about change. 

John Kotter is an expert in leading change. To paraphrase Kotter: ‘The first step in leading change is creating a sense of urgency.’ Urgency might mean we need to move from a too comfortable world.

The poet Brian Andreas writes: “Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable; fall asleep ; miss your life.” 

Overcoming comfortable and missing our life’s call often requires urgency. 

I believe we need to listen to angels that endeavor to be sure we are not too comfortable and wake us up.

Jesus and Paul and Friedman urge us not to be anxious. What element of our leadership life have angels looked at and said “wake up, you are letting comfort dictate what is going on, following the call of Jesus may not be comfortable or safe.” 

There is an irony in Hester Prynne: she is arguably the person of most character in The Scarlet Letter. Her Adulteress A is gradually transformed to an item of beauty, embroidered as a reflection of her inner character.

What if allowing others to brand us with an Anxious A is actually a mark of our own transformation, an item of beauty?

Returning to Friedman: What might it take for us to leave the 'seatbelt society' and instead seek a holy adventure in some presumed unsafe wilderness? I wonder if this isn’t Exodus meeting contemporary safety standards.  

Jesus says to not be anxious.

Paul says to not be anxious.

It is scriptural to not be anxious.

As we jointly tackle an uncertain future, let’s understand that urgency is the issue, moving from the status quo, and not allow anxiety to define us.

But we need clarity within community as to why and what defines us as anxious.

For Hester, her Adulteress A became a scarlet letter of distinction and honor. 

Maybe if others label you with a Scarlet Anxious A, but you are, in holy humility, confident that you are a Jesus-like and Paul-like non-anxious presence, let it be a scarlet letter of honor. 

Urgency and raising the temperature in the room so that the status quo is chased does not immediately equal anxiety. 

If the issue is urgency and changing the status quo, I believe we can wear that scarlet letter with honor. 

Selah, Dennis