The Rev. Karen Gustafson joined the Society as Minister in August, 2007.

Prior to coming to Madison, Karen was the Minister of Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth, Minnesota. She is a graduate of the Starr King School for the ministry in Berkeley California.

Before becoming a minister, Karen taught public school in Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. Karen is married and has four adult children and three grandchildren. In her “spare time” Karen enjoys cooking, movies, theater, enjoying Madison’s restaurants and exploring Southern Wisconsin with her husband, John. In the summer she enjoys time with her family on Rainy Lake in northern Minnesota where she was born and raised.

Her involvement in the Unitarian Universalist Association includes two terms on the Prairie Star District Board of Directors; UUA Department of Faith and Action Social Justice Empowerment; Midwest Leadership School.

Musings and Insights

by Karen Gustafson, Associate Minister

The worship theme for November is courage and fear.

The July 4th after my son Bob turned seven was cold and misty – as only an Independence day in northern Minnesota can be. But the evening cleared enough that city fathers had determined that the fireworks would go on as planned.  A friend suggested that the right vantage point would be Enger Tower, a city landmark atop a hill overlooking the harbor where the fireworks would be set off. We knew we would not be the only ones with this idea so we got an early start and established our little band about three-quarters of the way up the tower.

The problem was the cold and dampness that we soaked up like sponges as we stood around pretending that this was an adventure. Bob’s body mass was roughly that of a hockey stick and after the first half hour he was shivering. So we determined that the rest of the family would hold our spot in the tower and Bob and I would make the long trek back to fetch the emergency car blanket.

The path that led to and from the tower was paved and well maintained but on the downhill side was a dump of large and irregular rocks, the kind that call a boy to climb. This day in the moments of passing dusk, they were wet and black. On our way back they called to Bob.
“Can we climb back up on the rocks?” he asked.

“Oh, Bob,” I said, “ those rocks look really slippery and I am afraid that if I tried to climb them I would slip and fall.”
“Yah,” he said. “But not ‘kidfraid’.”

No, not “kidfraid.” “Kidfraid” is its own kind of fear. I am still not entirely sure what it meant to him just then or why he surfaced that idea in that moment. But I knew what it meant to me, had meant in my life as a kid and could even recall moments when I had felt it – maybe as recently as that past week.

“Kidfraid” is fear of the dark. Of monsters under the bed and things that “go bump in the night.” It is the fear we feel when the light of our knowing is too dim to make out the shape of things to come; when the possibilities we can imagine but not see bode only ill.

This is the fear that shapes our earliest acts of courage: to trust in the coming of light; to be grateful, perhaps, that the monster is under the bed and not IN the bed; perhaps to re-imagine the monster as a possible friend; to take comfort from the presence of something inanimate (a stuffed animal or a statue of the Blessed Virgin) upon which we have projected the qualities of protector.

The child psychologists of today refer to this as “self-soothing,” a quality that shows up in adulthood as self-sufficiency, independence, confidence and, at best as moral courage. Courage is an act of faith, faith in one’s own ability to distinguish between real or perceived danger; faith in the resources that support us when we misjudge; faith in the efficacy of our own capacity to intervene in the face of our own fear or the fear of another.

We learn to be courageous by facing down all kinds of fears. We learn to be courageous by acting when we can do no other.  We learn to be courageous by wading out of our comfort zones and risking the exhilaration of new understanding and new experience; by letting the light of love illuminate the dark night of the soul. 

The man who was that child drawn to those slippery rocks has turned his “kidfraid” into the most life-giving kind of audacity. World travel and parenthood and a passionate connection with a dizzyingly diverse cut of the human family make him for me a true model of courageous living.
May we so aspire.

Love, Karen.