Do Not Worry

The passage for our Bible study last night was from Matthew 6 - Do Not Worry.  This is part of the text:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷ Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[e]?

. I started our time together asking each person what they worried about - beginning with myself and my worry about "losing my mind" as I am aging.  Others mentioned the pandemic, the racial situation, the political life.  There is much to worry about.

At the end of our time together Pastor John appeared and talked about his worries - when to open, the critics of the church, what to do.  what to do   what to do.

One of the quotes from Barclay on this: "Jesus is forbidding  a careworn, worried fear which takes all the joy out of life."

And I know that fear and how easy it is to succumb to it - especially in the face of this pandemic.  Barclay also spoke of the wisdom of the rabbis - life ought to be met with a combination of prudence and serenity.  Which in my mind means masks and social distancing and somehow trusting that God still wants us to live and find joy even now.  

I spent all day at church yesterday and am always shuttling between an awareness of how hard life is and remembering how good God is.  One of our members slid off her bed and did something to her eye so that right now she has no vision in it.  Another person had surgery and had his vocal chords nicked and for now they are paralyzed.  Everything can change in a moment.  We live - whether we like it or know it or not - always vulnerable.

And yet the message from Jesus is "Do not worry." I began a course through the Center for Contemplation and Action on Teresa of Avila.  And once again I remembered that God is with us always and in all ways.  There is no situation in which I am outside the love and care of God.  My hope is that I will continue to deepen my sense that God is "closer to me than I am to myself." (quoting James Finley)  That is what helps me not to worry.  What helps me not to worry is to seek God first - through prayer, Bible study, Christian community, worship, nature, silence, etc.

And so, I continue my prayer practices and know that because of them I am able to trust a little bit more and push the worry away.  I will end with a reading from Teresa of Avila. 

Let nothing disturb you.

Let nothing upset you.

Everything changes.

God alone is unchanging.

With patience all things are possible.

whoever has God lacks nothing.

God alone is enough.

 

In other words - do not worry.