The Terror of Truth

Underneath all of the business of practical living and all the distractions, are you as terrified of reality as I am?

I first saw this painting, “Study after Valaquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X” by Francis Bacon, in an art history class back in 1977. The professor told us that it represented Bacon’s belief about the terror inside all of us. The disturbing image became an indelible symbol for me of my own ultimate fear. Through the years this eternal, unsettling premonition of terror and oblivion that began with night terrors as a child and continued in my acid trips in the early 70s, has surfaced time and again in my conscious, waking thoughts without the former catalysts. I was always afraid that would happen, that the veneer of my temporal, material activity, my normal life, would wear thin and the fearful, raw reality of existence from my unconscious background become permanently exposed with all its terror. I now understand the painting vividly. I have come to realize that my childhood terrors, my elucidating drug trips and their foreboding prophesy are very real and portend a most unimaginably horrific final end. But I couldn’t always admit this. That it was true, was way too traumatic to believe, that is, until it broke through into my conscious reality in a permanent way.

It was 1992. One of my former art students and I were traveling to Bowling Green State University to visit another former student enrolled there. Somewhere along the route it happened. In an instant, the veneer dissolved and existential reality and accompanying despair was exposed. While I managed to keep my outward appearance normal, my mind was enveloped in terror. We had our visit during which I tried to share what was happening to me but the experience was and is still far beyond human words to describe. Returning home I got my friends to pray for me, a lot. I was able to resume what looked like a normal life and my art teaching position but my inner life was in constant terror. I felt completely beyond the reach of anyone, even God, knowing that my final end would be complete catatonic paranoid abandonment. But that would not be my end.

I remember clearly the beginning of my deliverance. On a walk a short distance from my house, the Holy Spirit rose up in me with fiery indignation. In my mind I turned and confronted the terrifying and fearful reality. I “looked” it fully in its face and began aggressively speaking in tongues with a very considerable sense of power. For the first time in about a year, peace returned and relief flooded my spiritually drained soul.

From that time on I have had peace concerning the existential fear. Yes, existing is scary. I think our worst fear is being alone with no companion and no guide to show us how to do this thing we call “being”. There is nothing more frightening than thinking you will have to exist forever on your own. Well, I have come to know that the God of all “being” has created conditions to alleviate this fear and has provided us with a meaningful and joyful existence. Through what I have experienced, I know that God is absolutely above all and God is more than enough to address our fear and meet our needs.