On the church retreat last weekend Maisy and I went for a walk through the snowy woods. We saw all sorts of tracks in the snow – deer, mice, turkeys (which look like big arrows pointing in the way somewhere). We spotted Jen and Brian, and little Ava sitting atop Brian’s shoulders grasping his head like the world’s cutest smiling hat.
When we had nearly returned to the lodge, we passed a small red squirrel, sitting in the snow, gnawing on an acorn. It was only about 6 feet away from us, and didn’t seem bothered as we came near. Suddenly it looked up from its work and noticed us. It’s animal instinct must have kicked in, because it made to run, only instead of dashing across the vast empty field away from us, it must have made a quick calculation about the single tree, a mere two feet from where we stood, and ran toward us instead. A second after it landed on the backside of the trunk, its little tufted, squirrelly face suddenly peeked around the tree, right at our faces and jerked back into hiding. Maisy and I were shocked and delighted and started to laugh. Just a few seconds later, it peeked out the other side of the tree, as if to see if we were still there, and we doubled over. It’s tiny face was arm’s reach away. We weren’t just out observing nature, we were being met by it – interacting with this other species who was interacting with us. After a minute or two, the squirrel dashed up the tree onto a branch and stared warily down at us as we continued our walk, feeling light and joyful.
On that retreat (our guest speaker) Phil said that all Christian disciplines are designed to bring us back into the love and connection of God - they help us remember and experience what’s true. Then he called out two in particular, that are readily accessible, that we can do anytime, each one like a shortcut back to the Kingdom of God when we’ve veered off course into the Way of Fear. These two practices are forgiveness and gratitude.
Forgiveness deals with the past; it’s the remedy for regret. Gratitude resets the future; it’s like civil disobedience to worry. This week, as we’re heading into the official holiday of gratitude, we’ll look at worry and gratitude. We’ll save the talk about regret and forgiveness for next weekend, after Thanksgiving is over.
But, as Phil pointed out, both forgiveness and gratitude begin with seeing and accepting things as they are.
“Here is what is.” They both say. “This is what’s true.”
They don’t cover up or smooth over, and they don’t deny or avoid.
Forgiveness and gratitude both see and accept what is.
The only place God can meet us, or that we can even actually live our lives – is in the present, in what is right now.
Even though regret would try to tell us otherwise, we can’t go back and change the past.
And no matter what worry says, we can’t shape a future without risk and suffering.
It just doesn’t work like that.
But we can waste our whole lives either reaching back or grasping forward, and never live in the truth of what is, which is to never really live.
So to begin, we have to see and accept what is.
So we look. We notice. We consider.
Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the birds of the air; see the squirrels of the trees. Consider the Avas on the Daddy’s shoulders. Notice the world you’re in right now while you’re in it.
Often, seeing and accepting what is takes something called self-empathy.
Toward the end of my sabbatical, the third week in October, I went with three other pastors to the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. This is the place I went two years ago for a silent retreat by accident. This time I was going for a silent retreat on purpose.
For almost two full days, I felt my crazy, monkey mind bouncing around with song lyrics, commercial jingles, dumb movie lines and 90s pop tunes. “Come with me if you want to Not-Talk” kept repeating on a loop in my brain. There was just so much unrelenting noise inside of me. But just after my arrival, I had read something Fr. Thomas Keating wrote, “The psyche needs expulsion just like the body does.” So I kept taking a deep breath and acknowledging and accepting what is, and giving myself some empathy. Look at you, noisy mind! Look at all the expulsion you’re doing!
And on and on it would go.
Until… it didn’t.
Until I realized with a start that there was no noise inside my head at all.
The songs were gone, the words were gone. My mind felt clear and open and spacious. I was astonished. I kept walking into my mind like an empty room, and feeling around the clean and beautiful walls and floor that I’d maybe never felt through all the clutter usually jostling around in there. Would you look at that! It’s still quiet! And the quiet, still, focused mind remained for the rest of the week, and I was mostly able to stay in the present with God, and marveled that such a thing was even possible.
Except for when worry came.
Perhaps nothing is faster at pulling us out of the right now- where God is waiting to hang out with us – than worry. Worry is a tantalizing, addictive distraction. It makes us feel like we have some control. We don’t. It’s a liar from the Way of Fear. For me, it’s kind of the Lead Liar. It's the liar out in front that lets the other lying lies slink in after it when worry has propped open the door. Worry takes us captive to hypothetical scenarios and worst-case projections – what if there isn’t enough? What if I am not enough? What if the worst happens? What if I lose it all?
Worry found me because of my phone. I was choosing to be as present as possible in my life right now, which was this silent time with God. So when I got there I turned off my phone, and planned to leave it off the whole time.
This felt a huge deal. Because not only would I be away from my family for a whole week, but for about 30 hours of this time, my kids were going to be home alone. They would be spending the night at two different neighbors’ houses, and everything was planned out to the minute, but it was the first time we’d left them without grandma or staying at the house with them.
And I was turning off my phone.
What if something terrible happens while I am away?
At times I had to sit on my hands and take deep breaths to keep myself from heading downstairs to the landline phone booth in the lobby and calling home to make sure all was well.
Again with the self-empathy, this time for my heart.
Oh, dear heart! Look how afraid you feel to be apart from them! Do you think that by being right there with them you could prevent all terrible things from happening? Look how scared you are to face your deepest fears! What if something terrible didhappen and you lost the people you most love and treasure? And you were just you? All alone in the world…? what if, what if, what if…”
Remember a couple years ago when we said worry was the big what if? Pulling you right into the way of fear? Worry is practicing fear, we said. What if, what if, what if…
And rest, we said, is practicing trust. Rest is the Even if… even if… even if…
Every time I felt the worry rise up in my throat I gave myself empathy with the what ifs until I could let it go and return to the resting even ifs… of trust.
And I also wrote postcards. I mailed my family two postcards a day. I even sent one to the dog.
Imagining them getting my postcards helped me let go of my worry and return to the present, where God was waiting for me. (Of course, the postcards did not begin arriving until I had been home for two days, but I didn’t know that at the time, so it worked for me).
God wants to be with us right now.
We can see God in the world right now. We can notice God in our lives right now.
God likes you, and enjoys you, and wants to hang out with you right now.
The best part of the five days I spent at that monastery was the two different hikes I took for over three hours each, just hanging out with God. The first hike was through a green forest with the deep silence of nature – which of course is cacophonous – birds and brooks and turkeys and squirrels and wind in the trees. Deep communing with nature with no goal other than to be. Look at the birds! Consider the lilies! Walk out your own foot-stepping beat in God’s great symphony!
A frost overnight meant my second hike, two days later, was among brilliantly red-dipped trees and golden tunnels of lime and yellow. I got to see the world suddenly shift into its Autumn garb so deliberately. Who sees and holds all of this in loving care,my heart asked me, while you are not noticing? You sneaky, gorgeous world! You steady, persistent God! Gratitude upon gratitude, for the grace upon grace.
This past week I was at the National Youth Worker’s Convention in St. Louis. I go every year and spend nearly three days sitting and listening to strangers one by one, with no other agenda except to watch for what God is doing in their lives.
I get to consider the person and life before me, and watch for the presence of God, and when we do this, right now God is with us. In the very simple and profound act of my listening and their speaking, we are sitting in the presence of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, and seeking first the Kingdom of God and real connection with God. This is not just a bunch of churchy words. This is really what happens when we look together at the honest truth of our lives – both the hope and the pain of them – and seek God there. God says when you seek me you will find me. And so we sit together and seek. And so we find.
Thanksgiving is a ripe time for fake gratitude.
But I am going to suggest that this year, we don’t give in to the temptation to fake the feeling, and instead we meet ourselves right where we are. With empathy.
Hey! Look at that pain that just popped up out of nowhere when Dad made that comment! Wow, look at the grief that rises up when I think about who isn’t at the table this year.
And when we give ourselves that empathy, we can come back into the moment enough to begin to look again. To consider.
Consider the smells of tradition and family as they waft around you, notice the memories they evoke. Watch the tiny one taking first steps, and see the tall one who has suddenly shot up past her mom. Look the one who has always seemed invincible now appearing so frail tucked into his chair.
Seeking first the Kingdom means seeing them. These belong to you. And they belong to God.
And all throughout this and the upcoming Christmas holidays, you can bet worry is going to try to tap you on the shoulder and say, Hey, I supposed to be here today; holidays are my jam! And the temptation will be to give in to it and give worry the floor.
But worry is no match for the real reality. Worry can’t keep hold when you turn and face it, and name the fear. Because the real reality, the Kingdom of God truth hiding right there underneath the worry is love. You’re worried because you so treasure this person. You so value this connection. The idea of losing it, or of losing them, makes you afraid.
Naming the fear turns worry from a powerful liar to an obnoxious invitation to be present to the love. It’s a chance right in front of you to let yourself feel the depth of that love seems suddenly threatened with loss –to look at the love and accept it. Receive what is. And then receive the gratitude too, because it will rise up inside you when you do. I love these people. In all their messy, broken, infuriating beauty. I love them. In the mystery of knowing them and never really knowing them, is also love. I belong to them and they to me.
And this is one way to seek first the kingdom of God.
But let’s not forget that scripture begins by talking about money. The verse just before it says, you can’t serve both God and money; there can be only one master in your life. So therefore, don’t worry about what you’re going to eat or drink, or strive to have stability in this world. God will take care of you. This feels like kind of a dangerous message. Of course we need to worry about those things. What kind of people would be if we didn’t worry about taking care of ourselves? Lazy? Naïve?
The Way of Fear would have us obsess about self-preservation. It would warn us to hoard and stockpile, and say, you can never be too safe. It would hold out images of a future without stability, and tell us that unless we grind away relentlessly, that’s where we’ll end up.
But again, when we turn and look at worry, when we tell it what we see, when we’re gentle with our pounding hearts and our shouting minds and say, Look at how afraid you are! Look at what that fear is telling you! Gradually worry backs down and gratitude rises up, because we can see the real reality underneath. Look how I am cared for. How my needs are met. See what gifts are abundantly spilling into my life! And not just the roof over my head or the food on my table. Gifts that are bigger and deeper and more sure: Love. Meaning. Friendship. Laughter. Beauty.
Can anyone by worrying add even a single hour to their life? Jesus asks.
Life is filled with suffering. That’s a fact.
And life is filled with joy. That’s a fact too.
And all worry does is keep us from experiencing life.
When we do the work right now of accepting what is, we are opening ourselves to experiencing life.
The Way of Fear does all it can to avoid death, and (spoiler alert) fails.
The Way of God is the death and resurrection reality that doesn't hide from what's real. We die to the things we thought made us secure or strong, and we acknowledge that the things and people we cling to die too. And so will we. And we also remember our God joined us in the worst life can bring, including death, so that we might have life that outlives death.
Fredrich Buechner famously says, "The grace of God means something like: 'Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are, because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us.”
This human life we live on this earth in is so precious and precarious.
It is both magnificent and brief. The grass will wither, the flower will fade, and the house will crumble away and disappear, but the love of God is everlasting, it is eternal life that will never end.
So stop and look around at this stunning world in all its detail and diversity.
God is caring for it.
And let it in, this one specific life you are standing inside of right now.
God is caring for you.
Stop and see your life as it is.
Let gratitude fill up the space in your heart opened by love.
Instead of worrying, seek first the way of love and the bond that connects us to God and each other despite all our acting to the contrary.
And all will be will, and all will be well, and all manner of things shall be well.
Amen.
(Quotes from Keating - Intimacy with God, Buechner - Wishful Thinking, Julian of Norwich)
