Take My Hand
Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, 1942
In the early days of the twentieth century, after the bloody confusions of WWI, at the beginning and shortly after the atrocities of WWII, W. H. Auden famously proclaimed ours to be “the age of anxiety.” For so many of our writers thereafter, and for many of us as well, Auden puts his finger on the pulse of our age.
Here we are, sitting at a bar with three others, each reflecting this acute sense of anxiety.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play . . .
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
Auden believed that we became a people of anxiety when we decided to give up on God and put our faith solely in ourselves, believing we could make our own meaning, find hope in our abilities, imagining we could still build loving communities.
I remember as a young student, in my early college years, how stunned I was on first reading Camus’s assertion, out of the mouth of Meursault, looking out at the stars on a beautiful night, before his execution, only to encounter the “benign indifference of the universe.” No God here to help assuage his fears.
I remember too hearing the old waiter in Hemingway’s A Clean Well-Lighted Place who was afraid to go home from the well-lighted bar because he was afraid of “a nothing that he knew too well. It was all a nothing and a man was nothing too.”
The echoes of Nietzsche are pervasive. Take God away and we are left with nothing. Where can we possibly go to find help to wipe away our fear?
I remember quite vividly the call of Pope John Paul II, during his inaugural address on October 22, 1978, looking out over the thousands gathered in St. Peters Square, his voice ringing out with clarity “Be not afraid,” a message directed squarely at our age of anxiety. Here was a man who knew what it was to be afraid against powerful forces of both Nazi occupation of his beloved Poland and later the devastating darkness of Soviet occupation. On that morning, though, the Pope rose to imagine a new day when we could follow the words of his Lord Jesus: “Be not afraid.”
We think of that incredible story when Jesus came walking across the water, during a furious storm, no less:
25 Between three and six in the morning he came towards them, walking across the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake they were so shaken that they cried out in terror: ‘It is a ghost!’ 27 But at once Jesus spoke to them: ‘Take heart! It is I; do not be afraid. Matthew 14:25-27
Jesus’s call rings out across the ferocity of the winds. Can we possibly hear that voice in our own day above our own howling winds, both personal and global?
Peter’s response becomes instructive:
28 Peter called to him: ‘Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you over the water.’ 29 ‘Come,’ said Jesus. Peter got down out of the boat, and walked over the water towards Jesus. 30 But when he saw the strength of the gale he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, ‘Save me, Lord!’ 31 Jesus at once reached out and caught hold of him. Matthew 14:28-31
“Come,” says Jesus, and we try. Peter puts his trust in Jesus for a moment, until he feels the power of the storm—and that’s me, walking along, until the winds threaten again to take me down. I grow anxious. Rescue me, I cry out.
We find ourselves listening for the echoes of Thomas Dorsey, Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Stephen Newby, and so many others, as our answer to the anxiety and fear that grips us all:
Precious Lord, take my hand
Lead me on, let me stand
I'm tired, I’m weak, I’m lone
Through the storm, through the night
Lead me on to the light
Take my hand precious Lord, lead me home
May it be so this day, oh Lord, when the winds blow hard against us. Release us from fear, oh Lord, this day, give us a day of peace and rest. Show us the way to take your hand, Lord Jesus, as you reach out to rescue us from fear.
I give you my hand, oh Lord, lead me on.