DELIVERED FROM FEAR

“ROW, ROW, row your boat,” goes the children’s song, “gently down the stream.” This is my great hope, of course, that I will experience life gently as I navigate my particular tributary in the stream of time. Nevertheless, the triad row reminds me of the hard work of living. Is life merely a dream? Hardly.

YET IF dreaming refers to the brevity of life, then it’s an apt metaphor for the form of this world which, as St. Paul taught, is passing away. As lovely as the rhyme is for little children, it doesn’t prompt me to cling to childish ways. The reality of life is this—I’m not removed from the prospect of storm and shipwreck; rather in Christ I’m delivered from fear of such things. Like St. Thomas More before the scaffold, I may speak merrily of heaven even as I merely pass through this turbulent world.