It is Fear

Monday, I watched a movie titled "The Vernon Johns Story," starring James Earl Jones. It was very enlightening to learn that Dr. Johns was the predecessor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Dexter Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. It was Dr. Johns, often described as angry, who planted the seeds of change that Dr. King so successfully watered and nurtured. It was Dr. Johns who spoke that a man who will not die for something is not fit to live. By the end of the movie, tears were streaming down my face and it wasn't because someone died. Tears were streaming down my face because Dr. Johns was willing to die so that blacks - or coloreds as they were then referred to - would not be forced to live as second-class citizens.

Johns had a wife and three young daughters when he came to Dexter. He received death threats, was arrested, had a burning cross on church grounds, and lost a friend to a police shooting. Through it all, he faced injustice with his chin stuck out and his head held high.
Commitment like that is awe-inspiring and it makes me question what is it that I would die for?

Oh, that question is one of those hard questions that one asks his or herself and may not like and true answer. I should say that I would die for Jesus Christ and I probably might say that. But if someone had a gun to my head, a la Columbine, and that someone asked me if I would die for Jesus Christ, I can honestly say that I don't know. Does that make me a horrible person? Is there anything else I would give my life for? I don't know.

And why don't we do other things in life? Why don't we believe that we can make the Olympics and live like it? Why don't we just move to where ever it is that we dream of living? Why do you stay in a relationship where you are not treated like the prince or princess you are? Why are we so intent on fitting in with others when we have been blessed with whatever it is that makes you unique?

It is fear. It is the fear that we will be alone, or that we'll fail. It is fear that what we believed was real, isn't. It is fear that we aren't deserving of the best. But the thing is that you deserve the best, however you will not get what you deserve if you never take a big risk. You'll never know how it feels to fly if you don't jump off of a cliff.

So, okay…enough preaching. I've got my shoelaces tied tight and I got my parachute on. I'll see you at the bottom of the cliff.