Knowing Your Fears

Dec 23, 2009 by winjaw

The middle Son of Thunder has a gift – he knows what scares him.

This knowledge is laser-focused when it comes to movies.  Mention a specific movie and he is out of the room.  There is absolutely no way he will watch it. And, he will tell you in great detail why he won’t watch it and even the exact time when whatever it is that scares him happens in the movie.

I admire this ability.  He knows what he knows.  He knows what he can and can’t handle.  We adults could learn a little from this.

There is a problem.  Namely, there is no rational explanation as to why one movie scares him and another doesn’t.  And this, on occasion, has led to death threats from the other two Sons of Thunder because their sibling absolutely will not watch a movie everyone has their heart set on.

Completely irrational. 

For example, he can watch Darth Vader all day long.  That guy just gives me the creeps, although the voice is pretty cool.  That’s especially true when the youngest Son looks at me and goes “Dad, I am your son” in the Earl Jones tone.

That scene when Skywalker – the soon-to-be Darth Vader – gets all melted up in the lava?  No problem.  However, any other movie with a “scary face” or pigs walking through mud or a house with one too many windows – game over.

Example: last night the clan voted to watch the latest installment of Indiana Jones.  Now the Little Black Dress and I couldn’t remember any real scary parts, but the middle Son sure did.  And again, reminded us of them point by point.  And of course the other two Sons thought that all sounded great and began questioning the manliness of their middle brother.

This does happen with some degree of regularity.  The middle Son simply refuses to watch the selected movie for whatever scene and then I go through my litany of movies he does watch that have scarier scenes and how does he explain that and it’s just a movie and can’t you agree with your brothers and we want to have family time and  …

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Okay, so I forgot about the man-eating crickets or whatever that drag the guy down into their pit.  And the aliens were a little creepy when they were sucking the life-force out of the Russian scientist.

I screwed up.  But having the middle Son repeatedly remind me that he reminded me beforehand was, well, getting out of hand. I got it.

And it also meant he got to sleep in our room because he got scared – as he told us he would. So it was paybacks, cause there’s no kissing and stuff with the LBD when the kids are sleeping with us. Well, maybe some kissing, but no “stuff.”

Apparently, the movie also seemed to impact the two previously macho Sons as well, who soon found their way to our bedroom.  Let’s just all camp out, shall we?  Whee.

So I asked the other two if the movie was a little scarier than they planned.  And they admitted it was.  And admitted they were a little hard on their brother. And admitted their brother was probably right – with the “this time” caveat.

I realized in this little episode there’s nothing wrong with having fears. And it’s great to know your fears, if for no other reason than to be able to avoid them, or at least know how to handle them when they come up.  For too many, the greatest fear is that of the unknown.

Might be a good idea for the other two Sons to learn what they fear – before they have to face it.

Or, from a scriptural standpoint, “Fear Not.”