Posts tagged anxiety

I’m taking the day off

2
1 year
by in faith, hope, love, poetry 
It's my birthday, 
so I'm taking the day off from worrying...

about the state of the earth, whether it's terminal 
about the state of the nation, whether it's fixable
about the state of our politics, whether they're resolvable.

I am exempting myself...
from chores unless I want to do them
from duties unless I care to accept them
from stuff that screams PAY ATTENTION! 

Worry and responsibility have been distracting
me from what it's clear I should be celebrating ...
--  the wonderful friends I have found
--  a glorious family that abounds 
-- the generous gifts which resound
-- the amazing world all around.

Disclaimer: 
I know full well, it is my privilege to get to choose worry-free;
because today no one is depending on me --
for food, for peace, for calm, for life.

Even more then the ample reason
to give thanks for this reality season; 
when I can't do what I used to, perhaps
so I especially enjoy the things I get to.

My pesky pups a'clambering to play
On this sunshine-kissed spectacular day,
Of course the first thing that I do,
Is step right in the dog poo.
Eh, shake it off, fertilizer, nothing to lose,
For now, I've got another pair of shoes.

I wonder how many things I'd worry about less 
If I trusted I had what's needed to clean up the mess.  

On this, my birthday in 2023
thank you friends for celebrating with me. 
I am feeling spectacularly free,
a privilege I don't take lightly.

Pass the Peace, Please

2
5 years
by in Christian, coronavirus, faith, Lent, prayer, Sermon Response

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. ~ John 14:27

This devotional meditation was originally written in December of 2019 and published in the Devotions for Lent booklet created and distributed by The Church of the Good Shepherd UMC — before the world changed for us all. It appears as the reading for today (April 4, 2020). I pray the words may offer you a peace that passes all understanding in your time and place this day.

I’m well acquainted with sweeping things under the rug to “preserve the peace,” buttoning my lip in order not to “disrupt the peace” and occasionally inserting myself to “restore the peace,” but I confess that being asked to “pass the peace” during a church service leaves me somewhat uncomfortable. While others seem to revel in the greetings with warm handshakes and hugs, I suspect there is more to this than well-wishing and the opportunity to visit with those in the next pew or across the aisle.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. When Christ offered these words of comfort to his disciples he was preparing them for the days he knew lay ahead. We are heirs to this same peace, one that is both personal and relational, a shalom. Because the Light of Christ has come into the world we are invited to enact that peace, offering it to each other in an expression of warmth, comfort and welcome.

This is such a simple act, yet brimming with faithfulness and trust, because how well do I really know you? True, you are my pew-mate, my neighbor, my co-parishioner or perhaps my guest, but what about the politics you practice, the parenting style you’ve adopted and the lifestyle you lead? Whoa, what a risk Jesus took in leaving His peace with us!

I do not give to you as the world gives. This is not a worldly peace – nothing so temporary as a ceasefire or a cessation of hostilities, nor so transient as a handshake or a hug. The peace Christ gives is insurmountable and uncontainable, yet when I hold it in my hand it weighs nothing and means everything. It is the peace that settles on a prayer-filled room where everything is at stake but there is nothing left to be done. This peace passes all understanding, yet it extends tangibly and undeniably from hand to hand and heart to willing heart.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. As I extend my hand to offer the peace of the Living Christ to you, my friend, my neighbor, my companion on this journey of faith, may the weight of our world be lifted and the love of Christ take its place both within us and between us. For there is nothing in the universe as constant as the presence of Jesus who promised that “where two or three are gathered in my name I am there with them.” (Matthew 18:20)

Today: Consider these words of remarkable dialogue from the beautifully conceived play, Silent Sky by Lauren Gunderson: “I choose to measure you in light.” If the hand we extend is filled with the peace of Christ, how now may we see the other by the Light of Christ? Blessed indeed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God.

No need to let go completely, just loosen your grip

0
5 years
by in Body

Tension. It’s the greatest scourge of our times.

Not anxiety, not worry, and not fear. As destructive as these are and as frequently as we are chastised for feeling them or cautioned about employing them, they are not what’s keeping us from moving forward in our days.

What’s really upending us is tension. Tensing is our body’s answer to what ails us and confronts us. Be ready, it says, don’t get caught off guard. Be diligent, don’t be found unaware. Be clever, don’t be fooled. These “be’s” have us wound tight and ready to spring. The irony is that the chronic contraction has nearly disabled our ability to move at all.

How much better off we’d be if we all took a deep breath with a big exhale to calm ourselves enough to actually feel our physical. To attend to the inward, to go deeper, to sit and chat a while with those emotions and sensations. Why not ask their names and where they hale from? Perhaps they’ll give you a temporary pass to explore just a bit, or at least negotiate a temporary ceasefire.

It’s funny what you find when you go there and see what shakes out. I went rummaging this morning, wondering about the root of my reaction to gripping tightly, and there I discovered a small child of five or six holding fast to the string of a red balloon. She was smiling up at her mom and dad as they walked together to the car after the school fair, until she saw the treasured prize begin to float up into the air. Soon it was aloft on the wind, growing smaller and smaller. Tears. Dismay. Gone.

We hold tight to things we love. But life has a way of teaching us that no earthly thing is forever. That we’d do well to hold it loosely, give it some breathing room and see where it takes us. If we’re on speaking terms, maybe it will tell us what we need to hear or show us what we need to do. If we are lucky and we listen carefully, it may explain itself to us — it may explain ourself to us — and that is profound gift.

Did you know you had been clenching your fists? grinding your teeth? furrowing your brow? What if you were to say, Hey, it’s okay to let your guard down for a moment. Take a break from the front lines. Release the weight of responsibility you’ve been bench-pressing. Relax and let another shoulder the burden for a moment. Allow yourself to recover and regroup.

The most amazing thing happens when we step back and exhale the breath we didn’t realize we’d been holding: the collapse we were expecting doesn’t come. We straighten instead. And, in our straightening, we extend.

No need to let go completely, just loosen our grip. Look at all the options we’ve been missing. Imagine if I had seen then that all any child needed was a small weight at the end of her balloon string so she need not worry. I’d be set for life!

At just the right time…

0
9 years
by in Quotes

At just the right time, you brought the world into existence, so why am I in such a hurry to speed things up?Earth

If I worry, am I bad?

0
11 years
by in Body, Deeper Sensation, Instinct, Life, Mind, Sermon Response

My friend says, “I am not a worrier.”  Is that possible? Real? True?

Worry and I have known each other a long time. I can’t say I don’t worry. Can’t say I won’t worry. Worry butts in every now and then and, actually, I think that is a healthy thing for me now. But it hasn’t always been that way.

Worry used to:

  • have me predicting a negative future I had no facts to support or
  • have me imagining a fictional horror story about my child who was late coming home
  • stop me from starting something that held great promise but came with significant risk

Yes. I have a worry button that has launched me into all these places. Still do. But I know its secret. It’s a signal. An alarm. Like the back up beep in my new techno-advanced car. It lets me know I am close to something I don’t want to hit or heading in a direction I may not want to go. This is okay with me. I am happy to have the heads-up.

Then I can decide whether to acknowledge the alarm and slow down, turn more sharply, or avoid the object in my blind spot. Decide rather than react. Reaction has me slamming on the breaks or stomping on the gas. Deciding allows me to maneuver.

This takes me to a conversation I had a while back with my then middle school aged daughter. We had just listened to a sermon by Tom, our pastor, who confessed that his cholesterol was way too high. Now, this man is exceedingly thin – some might say gaunt – but is known for his propensity to eat in large quantities. My daughter and I do not tend toward natural thinness; we wear what we eat.

“Aren’t we lucky,” I told her, “the scale tells us when our eating has been less than healthy. Tom has to wait for the blood work.”

I see the worry button as somewhat akin to the scale. Except it’s built in. It alerts us when something demands our attention. We can lay on the button and rush headlong into I-have-do-something-now mode or we can ignore it and let the chips fall as they may. Either of these can have dire consequences. Because it’s part of me, been placed in me by the Hand that created me, I don’t think it’s meant for either of these.

It is there to get my attention, but it’s accessible to the world. It has to be if I want to respond to the needs of the world. But I need to guard it. Because a powerful hand that is not God’s can push it. And the old conversations start again…he’s gonna say this, she’s gonna do this, you need to set them straight, this might be embarrassing…

The old conversations return. I hear them whispering to me. But I am not beholden to those old conversations. I can choose to turn off the button, flip the switch and say, nope, not responding to that alarm. But to shut it off before I hear the siren call of demise means I have to be extremely tuned in. I have to turn up the sensation on my worry alarm. This leaves me more sensitive to needs, even my own. Things hurt me. Sounds deafen me. Words offend me.

But this is the place of honest hearing. Where I hear the whisper that says, “Wendy, this needs your attention. You haven’t spoken this. You need to clean this up. You must write this, call them, submit this.” This voice I recognize as the One who works all things for my good, but chooses never to force me to comply.

He created me with a worry button with one face exposed to the world. The other face of it is His to tap. To turn my attention to Him and what He loves. And that includes me.

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