I learned that there were things to be afraid of; things that went bump in the night. But in the months leading up to that trip, I had gotten lost in more conceptual fears: fear of my circumstances, fear of what the future could bring, and fear of my emotional reaction to it all. There’s a homily that suggests that “the opposite of fear is faith.” Recalling the plaque on my father-in-law’s desk—Professional Fear Remover—I consider the role gratitude played in his life. I’m beginning to see that faith, or fear’s opposite, can be expressed as gratitude, which has always been the bedrock of my
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