[The Stage is on Fire] is a page-turner in which, much like life, there are no easy answers and yet each step of the journey yields insight and hope. This work of heart must not be missed!
Melanie Faith
Creative Writing Teacher, Essayist & Poet.
Katie Steedly’s first-person piece [The Unspeakable Gift] is a riveting retelling of her participation in a National Institutes of Health study that aided her quest to come to grips with her life of living with a rare genetic disorder. Her writing is superb.
The Society of Professional Journalists
In recognition of receiving the Dateline Award for the Washingtonian Magazine essay, The Unspeakable Gift.
I thank you … It is the authenticity of your “class notes”; and it is the delicacy and skill with which you present the nuances of classroom life and the actuality of your students’ and fellow teachers’ lives.
Maxine Greene
Philosopher and Education Scholar
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Intimacy with Fear
Fear is the natural reaction to moving closer to the truth
Pema Chodron
Pema Chodron begins When Things Fall Apart, Heart Advice For Difficult Times with a discussion of fear. She explains that we must get to know fear, “looking it right in the eye — not as a way to solve problems, but as the complete undoing of old ways of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and thinking.” It is about being present to fear, and considering fear as an invitation to courage. I am scared and angry right now. Many of us are. Many of us are faced with a level of fear that some have known for centuries for the first times in our lives. Being present to that is difficult.
Fear is the natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. The truth — we are truly interdependent — requires addressing public health, economic insecurity, and climate change. (Those issues require a generational perspective that is often lost in a society that demands immediate gratification.) The truth — we are all as vulnerable as the most vulnerable among us — stamps out the falsehood of ego. (Acknowledging our vulnerability is where courage comes in.) Perhaps the truth — power must be shared for justice to be realized — makes us quake in our collective boots. (Maybe, down deep, we really don’t want justice for all if it means less power for us?) Perhaps the truth — change happens — creates a toxic nostalgia that looks like dug in heels and demonization of the “other.”
Chodron tells the story of a student who stares down a lethal cobra in order face fear. After hours of being cornered, the student ultimately walks towards the snake. His old ways of seeing the snake had been undone. At that moment, the snake disappears. Chodron explains it is unclear whether the snake ever really existed. It could have been just a manifestation of his mind’s eye. Whether real or imagined, in walking toward his fear, the fear went away. Those steps demanded courage and presence. In walking toward our truth, our fears go away.
About Katie
From Louisville. Live in Atlanta. Curious by nature. Researcher by education. Writer by practice. Grateful heart by desire.
Buy the Book!
The Stage Is On Fire, a memoir about hope and change, reasons for voyaging, and dreams burning down can be purchased on Amazon.
