Don't be. The Lisp family of languages is not as scary or difficult as some people make out of it. I personally found it less mind bending than Haskell (which is a different beast altogether).
I'd suggest you to give Scheme a try, its more minimal than Common Lisp and IMHO simpler to start off with. All you have to keep in mind is that syntax in Scheme is both uniform and minimal. What you also need to remember is that Scheme is probably unlike any other language you have encountered (The Algol family), so you must not try to program in Scheme the way you do in say C or Pascal.
Agree, Lisp is actually very easy to learn initially. You don't have to grow a beard and stop bathing, just have some fun with the basics and see where it leads you.
I'd suggest you to give Scheme a try, its more minimal than Common Lisp and IMHO simpler to start off with. All you have to keep in mind is that syntax in Scheme is both uniform and minimal. What you also need to remember is that Scheme is probably unlike any other language you have encountered (The Algol family), so you must not try to program in Scheme the way you do in say C or Pascal.