God Bless Our Anxious Hearts
/We're in a weird state to say the least. I don't know about you, but I've just felt off this week, unsettled, not sure what to do or not to with myself. Looking for guidance, but finding such contradictory statements from, it's no big deal to we're all going to die!!!! Asking these daily questions. . . Should I pull my kids out of school? Should I stop working? Should we hole up now, or wait and see? Is it enough to wash our hands and refrain from human contact or do we need to take more drastic measures?
I will leave talking about the virus to the experts, and by that I mean scientists and health care professionals who actually know and trust verifiable scientific facts, not unsubstantiated "hunches."
But I do have some thoughts about the anxiety enveloping all of us to various degrees.
This seems like a no-brainer, but first I want to say, OF COURSE we are unsettled and fearful. We are dealing with an unprecedented global health crisis, and there is so much we do not, and cannot know. We do know that it is here, it is spreading at an alarming rate, and some people are getting very sick and dying. So of course, if there is a threat to our own life, or to those we love who may be more at risk, we may be quite anxious. Whether we have to stay home from school and work, or we cannot stay home due to the nature of our work or the economic impacts, that can bring a holy host of other fears and concerns. While all of this is hard to bear, this is a sign that we are human, and we care.
I say this because we often tell ourselves and one another just the opposite. Instead of having empathy and compassion on our pain and anxiety, we judge it. People of faith, while we may be well-intentioned, often seem particularly prone to this. There seems to be this notion (and I've already seen FB posts to this effect in the last few days), that if we believe in God and we pray, we will not struggle, or we will be spared from disease, natural disasters and the like. If God's in control, we shouldn't worry. "We should let go and let God." Have you ever told yourself or someone else something to that effect? Have you ever had someone say that to you when you were really struggling with grief or anxiety or difficulty? At best, it may leave us feeling lonely and misunderstood, and at worst, shamed, like there is something wrong with us or our faith. Faithful people, who pray fervently for different outcomes, meet their Maker every day, and I believe God was with them all along, meeting them right in the heart of their pain, grief, or fear.
In our worship circle Tuesday evening, we read this portion of Psalm 49 from Nan Merrill's beautiful translation, Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness.
Yes, even the wise are not immune to fear;
yet, unlike the ignorant, the wise
face their fears with resolve.
Not running away, not projecting them
onto others,
They trace them to the source,
rooting them out as weeds
from a rose garden.
Thus, they to do not trust the riches of the world,
but in the Treasure hidden in the heart.
Be not afraid to discover the Treasure within,
to seek the gold hidden
in the garden of your heart.
For inasmuch as you root out each fear,
will truth and peace & joy become your riches.
You will live in the realm of Love
becoming a light,
a beneficial presence in the world.
I love that it basically says we will all experience fear and anxiety. It's part of the human condition. The question is, What do we do with it? Do we try to distract or numb ourselves from feeling our real anxiety? Do we pretend we're not scared, or project it onto others? Or do we own it, and see what it is really about, tracing it to its source and with God's grace, rooting it out?
Just this past Sunday, so overjoyed by the sunny day after all the rain we've had, the boys and I headed outside to work in the yard for the first time this season. We hit our knees and tackled a patch of ground that was covered with weeds. Once again, I was struck by how vast and deep they went, how you could pull something seemingly small on the surface and end up unearthing a whole root ball running like crazy underground.
What a brilliant image for our anxiety and how we might work with it, starting by acknowledging what's really there, without judging or shaming ourselves.
And then what?
This Fall, our Women's Spirituality Group read The Book of Joy, detailing an in-depth conversation that took place between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One of the things I loved about their exchange was the creative tension they held between feeling what we feel, and not being completely controlled by our feelings. Tutu kept insisting that we have to graciously accept our humanity with all that it brings without shaming ourselves and thus doing more harm. The Dalai Lama kept insisting that we have a lot more control over our thoughts and feelings than we think. He suggests that much like our physical health, we have to develop our "mental immunity," so we might lessen our experience of pain and suffering. Regular prayer and meditation are a huge part of this.
Can we hear both of those things as true? And how might we practice this acceptance and spiritual growth right now in the midst of our individual and collective anxiety over the coronavirus? A few suggestions:
I hope we will be incredibly gentle and kind with ourselves and one another. We're getting a lot of advice about how to physically protect ourselves from the virus. I hope we pay equal attention to how to tend our mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, which may be suffering whether we ever contract the disease. I find that even internally speaking the words, Of course you're anxious, has a soothing effect. It says, I see what you're really feeling and I care. And then I can offer myself something . . . a cup of hot tea, deep breaths, some movement on my yoga mat, a call to a dear friend. This is a far more gracious way of being than telling yourself to Suck it up and keep trucking. (which is sadly the message we get from a lot of corners of our world)
While we take to heart the importance of social distancing, I hope that at the same time we might recognize our deep interconnection and interdependence in this. It seems like one of the illusions being unmasked by the coronavirus is that we can go it alone, look out for #1, and to hell with the rest of the world. "Me first" or "America first" is not only profoundly unfaithful, it just doesn't work. We are all in this together. We are all going to be impacted by this, and we are all already feeling the effects, including the deep unsettledness and anxiety. How can we allow this to expand our compassion for one another and our sense of human connection, even when we have to hole up and keep to ourselves?
Without diminishing the real pain and suffering that comes with a crisis like this, I also believe there are always gifts and invitations. I've heard the Chinese symbol for crisis has two characters, one representing danger, and the other opportunity. And this aligns with my reading of Christian scripture, that often, when things look the most bleak, God is at work in the pain and suffering to bring liberation, resurrection, new life. What might be some of the gifts and invitations we're receiving through this, even as we bear the real suffering?
My heart goes out to all of us, and I just wanted to connect to try to offer some words of comfort and encouragement in these anxious times. I'm sharing a poem and two prayers below that I've found soothing these last few days. I hope and pray you feel God's warm and tender embrace wrapping you around as you feel all your feels.
Grace and peace to you, to your loves, to all who are anxious and hurting in this time,
Kimberly