Turkey tracks, monkey mind, and other places to glimpse God

Matthew 6:24-34

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)

Anxious but Unafraid

Matthew 6:24-34 and Proverbs 3:5-8

Friends, I think it’s about time we talked about worry.

I have a daughter who is pretty good about it – she calls me into her room when she needs “Worry Time”. We save up whatever has got her worried throughout the day, and then we sit down and she pours it all out. Sometimes she has to correct me, because I am not very good at platitudes, so she tells me what is most helpful for her to hear, “Mom, just say, ‘That will never happen, honey.’”  And so I do.

But most of the time, just sharing whatever it is that has got her worried, seems to take away the power of the worrying, at least for the moment.  And then she always asks me, “What are you worried about, Mommy?” And it always stops me in a rush of gratitude. Because it reminds me that we belong to each other.

For me, the most comforting thing for me to hear is not, “That will never happen.” But “Even if…” Even if the very worst thing that could happen does happen, it will still be ok.  

Even if, like the psalmist says, the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, that is STILL not the biggest thing. God is still God. Love is still the most true and first and final word. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore I will not fear. (Psalm 46) Because we belong to God and we belong to each other. No matter what. 

That is what I most often need to hear.

But oh, is worry a potent thing! 

Here is how worry works for me.

That terrible thing that happened over there happening to someone else?

What if it happens to me, or to someone I love? 

That loss – of home or family, of safety or order – flood, earthquake, war, famine, violence, I want to keep it far from my doorstep.

That unexpected tragedy that came out of the blue - that car accident or diagnosis - what if that happens to me or someone I love?

This terrifying and dangerous threat – ideology of dehumanization and division, isolation or provocation – it’s one thing in the hypothetical or in words, but what if it is given power, and action, and threatens me and my well-being?

I don’t worry about people suffering elsewhere. 

I might feel terrible about it, 

I might grieve it, feel angry or upset or compassionate or be filled with pity. 

But the worry comes in when I think that something bad could happen to me.

Worry always says “What if…” and then it shifts to the threat: What if…I wont not be safe. I wont have enough. I wont belong. I wont be seen. I lose someone I love, my security, my comfort, my place.

Worry rehearses the lie, over and over again; it whispers that we are unsafe, abandoned, futureless, hopeless and ultimately alone. 

In other words, we don’t belong to God, and we don’t belong to each other.

This is why worry is linked here with money. 

Money means security. If we are in it on our own, money is reassurance.  It means I have buffered myself from risk. I will have what I need – food, a bed, a home, a future. Because ultimately, this whole text is really about trust, and let’s be honest, Money is what we put our trust in. We trust in money so that we don’t have to worry. So most of the time what we worry about is having enough money.

So here is how I worry. I obsess. I read every dumb article I can get my hands on. And I can feel my blood pressure going up, and my heart racing, and my mind churning and my stomach clenching. I can feel the world around me fading out when I concentrate on whatever it is I am worried about. 

I think to myself, What if my worst fears come true? And then I google them. 

The news, the stock market, politics, webMD, CaringBridge – I feed the worry and it grows.

And while this is happening, the world is turning around me, like it does moment by moment, year after year.  The leaves are gently shifting into brilliance and color, the squirrels are finding their hiding spots for the winter.  Kids around me are discovering new, amazing skills, like standing upright and walking to their daddy, or cracking the code and suddenly discovering those shapes on the signs outside the car windows are words, and knowing what they say, or realizing in some other new way that their bodies, or minds, or voices, can do things in the world that have an impact and make a difference. And the ones in my own house are even sometimes inviting me to see that and celebrate or mourn whatever is real in their life along with them, but I am missing that.

While we are obsessing and worrying, new little people are being born, and rich full lives are ending, and every day in between is filled with all these moments where God is trying to show us, over and over again, Hey! You belong to me you wonderful, beloved person! And look, you belong to each other, all around you, all these other wonderful, beloved people! All of you, scared and longing and hopeful and brave, walking around on this earth like it matters, because it matters.

And here’s the truth about all the things we worry about: when the worst things do happen, the hardest and scariest and ickiest things have happened to us in the past, we made it through.  And what in advance had seemed unendurable, is endured after all, and worry’s “What if…” did not help us at all.

I heard a wonderful On Being podcast in which Krista Tippett interviewed Benedictine Monk David Steindl-Rast, who talks about the power of gratitude to reconnect us to God and each other, to ground us again in what is real.  But what stuck out to me most in this interview is how he answered her when she asked him about his perspective of living in a time where things seem so precarious and terrible.

We must acknowledge our anxiety about it. He said. We must acknowledge our anxiety, but we must not fear.  There is a great difference.

…Anxiety, or being anxious, this word comes from a root that means “narrowness,” and choking, and the original anxiety is our birth anxiety.

We all come into this world through this very uncomfortable process of being born…. It’s really a life-and-death struggle for both the mother and the child. And that is the original, the prototype, of anxiety.

At that time, we do it fearlessly, because fear is the resistance against this anxiety. See? If you go with it, it brings you into birth. If you resist it, you die in the womb. Or your mother dies.

So, anxiety is a reasonable response to a lot of human experience.

and we are to acknowledge it and affirm it, because to deny our anxiety is another form of resistance. But the fear is life destroying.

Anxiety is not optional in life, he says. It’s part of life. But we can look back at our lives, at times we were in really tight spots, times of anxiety, and say to ourselves, we made it! We got through it! … In fact, the worst anxieties and the worst tight spots in our life, often, years later, when you look back at them, reveal themselves as the beginning of something completely new, a completely new life.

And that can teach us, and that can give us courage, also, now, that we think about it, in looking forward and saying, yes, this is a tight spot. …But, if we go with it,…it will be a new birth. And that is trust in life.

So here is what I have to say to 2016: 2016, you suck.

And here is what I have to say to us: Right now is an anxious time.  

And most of us feel the anxiety acutely. All these ugly and toxic things inside of our culture, our systems, our very selves, they are leeching out, coming to the surface, and they are right here in the open, like gaping wounds.  We can see the horror we’ve practiced avoiding, ignore or suppressing, and it is really hard to look at.  And it feels big and sad and awful. It feels like we’re broken, a little bit.  And that makes us feel helpless.

We hate anxiety so we resist it, and we give in to fear. And worry is fear’s fuel, it’s momentum.  So in fear we might lash out at each other, or turn in on ourselves, obsessing about how our safety or security or happiness or precarious balance of equilibrium could vanish, seeing the threat all around us, feeding the fear, working the worry.

Right now we are in a narrow, constricted time.  And it hurts, and feels rotten and uncomfortable.  And we are resisting it.  Oh, are we resisting it. We are letting fear get us stuck, and the worry keep us distracted and preoccupied.

But there is invitation in this time.  There is an opportunity opened up in these times, to move from “What if…” to “Even if…”

By considering the lilies and the birds, by noticing and gratitude, we are shifted from worry to trust.  Trust in the one who holds us.  Trust looks up; it sees much farther and wider than worry, which can only look in one frozen spot with fear.  

Trust can look back at God’s faithfulness in the past, and trust can look forward with courage and hope, and trust can look around with eyes wide open, acknowledging the anxiety, seeing things as they are, but also holding onto a vision of things as they should be. Trust seeks first the Kingdom of God, the belonging of God that claims us and connects us.  The rest will fade and wither and die and change, but we will always belong to God and we will always belong to each other, no matter what it looks like on the surface at the moment.

We are in a series on Sabbath.  So as I say each week, when we say we are a congregation that practices Sabbath, we are not just saying that we worship sometimes on Saturdays instead of Sundays.

By practicing Sabbath, we are saying that as a community of people, we refuse to live fueled by worry and driven by fear. We will face anxiety and call it what it is – uncomfortable, terrible, painful, and we will trust anyway.

Sabbath is an active form of resistance to the way of fear, a powerful practice of defiance to worry.  In a 24/7 system where fear is cultivated and encouraged, and our connection to God and others is buried under noise and lies.Sabbath refuses to numb out, or rush past the pain, or submit to the relentless cycle of obsession and worry.

So when Sabbath invites us to say, I am going to step off the spinning carousel of chaos, and take a breath, and get my bearings, and sit down and be here, right here in my life, right now in honesty and gratitude, with no other agenda, it is a direct affront to the system of fear, and a powerful antidote to the cycle worry. Sabbath is such a potent and subversive move because it reminds us that we are, in fact, free, free to opt out of that game at any moment.

Because when we rest, we trust. It’s not a feeling; it’s an action. 

We actively give up the frantic resistance of fear, and the flailing of worry. Instead we welcome the anxiety, and let ourselves face it and feel it, as uncomfortable as it is. We recognize that it’s true, in lots of ways we are completely helpless.  

But then, something comes after that: the “what if” dissipates and the “even if” finds us and reminds us what is real. That despite what we see on the news and on the CT scan and on the bank statement, that is not the most true thing. “Even if” the very worst thing that could happen does happen, God is still God. Love is still the most true and first and final word.  And we usually find ourselves surprised by gratitude, a sense of peace, a momentary remembering of the belonging that claims and connects us all.

This is what it means to be people who practice Sabbath. 

We are people who practice trusting God with all our hearts, and leaning not on our own understanding, acknowledging God in all our ways, and letting God direct our paths, and in so doing, we will find healing for our bodies and refreshment for our souls. (Prov. 3:5-8)

And something else happens as well.  

Stopping, resting, trusting, makes space for the Spirit to lead us to responses that are productive, and faithful.  Responses like grieving – which connects us with the heart of God that longs for things to be as the are meant to be.  Or helping each other, listening to each other, or tending the earth, tending our souls- all these things plug us back into the real reality – belonging to God and belonging to each other.

Because when we remember the real, instead of seeing a crisis a half a world away and fearing it might land on our doorstep, we might reach out in generosity, or listen for the stories of hope and connection.  

Instead of dreading danger in our communities or vilifying those we don’t understand, we might let curiosity lead us to learn about our neighbors, or seek a way to connect more deeply with someone and their story. 

Instead of walling ourselves off in shame and supposed self-protection, we might find courage to reach out in our need and let others come near to us and tend to us.  

In other words, when we remember that we belong to God and we belong to others, we will live that way, and that can change the world.

Someone said to me this week, Why do we think worrying is fruitful, but breathing and meditation is not? Why are we so willing and quick to worry? But not to be silent or pray or stop, things that actually are fruitful?

So today, we are going to be a Sabbath people. 

We are going to actively practice silence, and praying, and stopping.  

We are going to spend the next couple of minutes countering worry with trust, reconnecting with the source of our being and our belonging, preparing us to reconnect with ourselves and each other as well. (And if you are reading this at home, you are invited to breathe along as you read).

Breathing Prayer by ab simpson

Breathe in the breath of God

Breathe out your cares and concerns

Breathe in the love of God

Breathe out your doubts and despairs

Breathe in the life of God

Breathe out your fears and frustrations

We sit quietly before the One who gives life and love to all creation,

We sit in awe of the One who formed us in our mother’s wombs

We sit at peace surrounded by the One who fills every fibre of our being

Breathe in the breath of God

Breathe out your tensions and turmoil

Breathe in the love of God

Breathe out your haste and hurry

Breathe in the life of God

Breathe out your work and worry

We sit quietly before the One who gives life and love to all creation,

We sit in awe of the One who formed us in our mother’s wombs

We sit at peace surrounded by the One who fills every fibre of our being

You belong to God.

You are loved.

You are part of God’s plan to love the world.

Be at peace.

Amen.