Fear: A Spiritual Navigation

Jump on in.
Even with fear and trembling.

“I think I have been learning about faith as long as I have lived in fear. Maybe longer. Whenever I am afraid, it is because I am also believing in something unseen, and like faith, it too requires an agile imagination. Both seem to have a way of growing bigger depending on how much attention we give them although one seems fed by truth and goodness while the other is fanned by worry and dreaded ‘what ifs.’”

“Sort of like jumping into the sea though your stomach is as jittery as the boat and you call on God out of sheer absolute desperation though you feel anything but spiritual. You feel fear, in fact. Everywhere. But somehow once your skin is submerged in water, that same fear melts into a fear of God and it grips you, holds you close, keeps you safe. Makes you new. And your fear of water, or of men, or of loneliness, or of different people, or of being disabled or forgotten, dissolves like ice cubes on a summer day. You hardly notice the change but you drink it up and thirst for more.”

“This too, like faith, is a gift. Coming from the One who knew before you did that to soothe your soul was his job, not yours. Yours was to jump.”
—from the book

Jo Kadlecek’s masterful storytelling and image-rich life navigates us through fearful episodes and moments of joy. You will grapple honestly with questions of truth, faith, and spiritual freedom. Kadlecek’s God understands and calms fear—a God at work in the inner-city or poolside. Join Kadlecek in finding encouragement and hope as together you comb the shoreline of fear.

AUTHORBIO: Jo Kadlecek holds Master of Arts degrees in humanities with an emphasis on American literature (where her thesis project was a full-length play on the conversion of Dorothy Day), and in cross-cultural communication with an emphasis in urban ministry. She has a bachelor degree in speech and English secondary education. Currently, she and her husband live in New York City as white residents in the predominantly black neighborhood, trying to continue a commitment to urban living and cross-cultural neighboring. (She also lived in the black community of west Jackson, Mississippi for a year, and in Denver's Five Points for seven years.) Kadlecek's commitment to urban and social justice issues enhances her devotion to the literary arts, since both reflect the drama of human experience.

Founding editor and columnist with Inklings, a quarterly literary journal, Kadlecek is an award-winning freelance writer and journalist, covering primarily cross-cultural, literary, and religious issues for publications such as Discipleship Journal, Charisma, Christianity Today, The Saturday Evening Post, Clarity, Virtue and The National/International Religion Report.

Kadlecek is a contributing editor to www.Crosswalk.com, and the co-author of eight books, including the Gold Medallion finalist Resurrecting Hope: Powerful Stories of How God is Reaching the Cities (Regal) with John Perkins. In 1999 she wrote I Call You Friend: Four Women's Stories of Race, Faith and Friendship with Pamela Toussaint (Broadman&Holman) and Feast of Life: Spiritual Food for Balanced Living (Baker). She has a forthcoming book with Guidepost's Ruth Stafford Peale, another with Dr. Taylor Field of Graffiti Baptist Ministries on New York's lower east side, and is currently writing a book with Broadman&Holman that explores stories of redemption in the everyday.

In addition to her writing, Kadlecek has taught literature, communication, and writing courses for the past eighteen years to adult, college, and high school students on several Christian and mainstream campuses. As of September 2000, she will be working as a part-time writing teacher at a local elementary school with third and fourth grade students. Kadlecek has spoken at numerous workshops, writers' conferences, and literary festivals and has taught Bible studies at a variety of conferences, retreats, seminars, and churches. She is a member of the National Writer's Union and formerly served on the board of advisors for Virtue, Inklings, and VisionNew York.