It’s a poem by Wendell Berry that I have shared before, about ten years ago, when my first children were still very young. It’s come around again, this poem, upon the mind again, which is why I want to share it again. He wrote the poem about his children, about the fear he had for them. He wrote it in 1968; it’s called “To My Children, Fearing for Them.” It goes like this:

Terrors are to come. The earth

is poisoned with narrow lives.

I think of you. What you will

 

live through, or perish by, eats

at my heart. What have I done? I

need better answers than there are

 

to the pain of coming to see

what was done in blindness,

loving what I cannot save. Nor,

 

your eyes turning toward me,

can I wish your lives unmade

though the pain of them is on me.^[1]

A parent’s fear—a mom’s worry, a dad’s stress—that’s what this poem is about. “Terrors…to come…What you will live through, or perish by, eats at my heart…I need better answer than there are.” I should think each parent in here knows exactly what this poem is about. That’s why I remember this poem on occasion, for the fear that on occasion grabs me by the heart, worrying for my kids as I can’t help but worry, loving—and here’s the thing—what I know I cannot save.

And really there is no answer for it, no fix or remedy or technique or book you can buy or podcast that you can listen to that will take that fear away. It is what it is. Really the best you can do with fear as a parent—first, at least—is to feel it, to endure it, to resist being ruled by it. I’ve been a parent now for 15 years, and all I can tell you is beware those who make it sound easy, who tell you that if you’ll just do this or think of that; they’re likely selling you something; it’s as real as Instagram, don’t buy it. Wendell’s poem is closer to the truth. “Nor, your eyes turning toward me, can I wish your lives unmade though the pain of them is on me.”

Raising children is not like running a business, not like training for a marathon; it’s not goal-oriented in that sort of way at all; you’ll ruin your kids quickly thinking like that. And a lot of parents do. Instead, raising kids is like love; it is love, you know. And that means there’s not much utility proper to it. That means it’s an end all by itself; the family’s good is none other than the family itself, wasting time with your children in the backyard, your arm resting gently across your wife’s shoulders, all the peace a man needs. Anyway, I’m getting off topic here; it’s just I’m simply trying to talk about what’s truly good and what’s truly beautiful and the fear that inevitably surrounds it. Again, it is what it is; you should respect it.

But, as I said, you should also resist it; at least, you shouldn’t be ruled by fear—not as parents, certainly. Our kids, you see, need us to raise them by the lights of love and not the shadows of fear. The Atlantic last week published a story about a survey of 500 children, aged 8 to 12; the survey showed, unsurprisingly, that the “phone-based childhood is in full force.” Most kids, especially the older ones, had phones; most were already users or even addicts of social media, even though the research is simply by now undeniable how bad all that is for children that young.

But what’s interesting is that those same kids, huddled up with their phones, when asked how they would prefer to spend their time answered, most of them, that they would rather meet their friends in person, explore the neighborhood, play basketball—but here’s the thing—unsupervised. But that’s just it: “most of the children in our survey,” the authors of this research wrote, “said that they aren’t allowed to be out in public at all without an adult. Fewer than half of the 8- and 9-year-olds have gone down a grocery-store aisle alone; more than a quarter aren’t allowed to play unsupervised even in their own front yard.” That’s part of the reason why, these people suggest, so many kids have resorted to the screen, because we’re afraid to let our kids out of our sight. “Children want to meet up in person,” they wrote, “no screens or supervision. But because so many parents restrict their ability to socialize in the real world on their own, kids resort to the one thing that allows them to hang out with no adults hovering: their phones.”[2]

Now again, I don’t want to wander off topic. Nor do I want to pretend I’m not as guilty as any other parent; it kind of hurt to read that article, to be honest. I just want to acknowledge and respect the fear we parents have and should in some sense always have, but at same time I want to suggest that we must not give in to that fear; that is, we must not let parental fear overpower parental love.

Which is why I want to talk about Jesus. This is not a parenting talk, believe it or not, but a homily. Jesus, you see, in this part of Luke’s Gospel has been talking about fear, about what Christians should and shouldn’t fear. Don’t fear those who can kill the body, he says; rather, fear only the One who can cast the soul into hell.[3] Don’t be anxious about material things, he says; correct, you may not get the $5 million house, but God will take care of you; just don’t judge the Lord by your designer tastes.[4] And don’t be so foolish, he says, that you talk yourself out of sharing what you have with others; fear greed, because that’s a sure path to hell, Jesus says, not sharing; don’t worry about generosity. You’ve got it exactly backwards if you fear generosity but not greed. That’s the sort of stuff Jesus is saying in this part of Luke; he’s talking about fear, about what we should think about fear. If we really listened here and understood Jesus and took what he said to heart, the whole world would change. But anyway.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”[5] That’s what Jesus says. That’s what he says about all our fears. He’s not saying fear isn’t a reality or that it’s irrational to fear. He’s simply saying that in the middle of this frightening world, the Father has given us the kingdom. That is, he has given us Jesus Christ—his truth, his salvation, his victory over death. That is, what Jesus is saying is that God has given us heaven now, that we can live like we would in heaven now—loving our enemies, forgiving them, making friends with the poor, not fearing the sting of death—now, right now, starting now. That’s what Jesus says about fear, that by faith and by grace we can see what’s beyond it—the eternal good which conquers every fleeting evil.

Anyway, I’ve talked too much. I just wanted to welcome you into the kingdom—this kingdom, this parish, that we want to be ruled more by love than by fear. Whether you’ve been here a long time or are brand new, we want you to be honest about your fears yet beg for the grace to overcome it—the fear that is greed, the fear that is overprotection, the fear that prevents you from serving others, from volunteering. May we overcome that fear and may we with live within the Father’s good pleasure, for that’s what the Lord wants for us. We can see it, you know, in things like the play and laughter of children. But that’s another topic. But, look, listen. Amen.

^[1] Wendell Berry, “To My Children, Fearing for Them” (1968)

[2] Lenore Skenazy, Zach Rausch, and Jonathan Haidt, “What Kids Told U About How to Get Them Off Their Phones,” The Atlantic (4 August 2025)

[3] Luke 12:5

[4] Luke 12:22

[5] Luke 12:32

© 2025 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield