Not Worrying, Part One
My home is a place of refuge. I come here to get away from the world, and I've made little niches of comfort and solitude throughout my home, different places I can go, depending on my moods-- and the weather! Today is a very cool day, cloudy, almost gloomy. We are as close to Gothic in the weather as maybe SoCal can get! So I am indoors... and chilly!
My front balcony has plants on it, and a bird feeder-- not exactly the "field" of birds and lilies of Matthew 6:25-33, but as close as I'm going to get at the moment. My birds and flowers have taught me a thing or two about living in this world, and what they've taught me may or may not have been what Jesus had in mind.
For instance, we hear a lot these days about how much better it is to view life and living as "abundant," and sure enough, whenever we feel like we are living in scarcity, we are going to find ourselves worrying about whether we are going to "have" enough. Like our insurance companies, I get that connection.
The thing is, Jesus talks as if the birds are free of this, and perhaps in many respects they are. But the ones who come to my feeder are definitely living in a world of scarcity! Even the little sparrows and finches scuffle with one another, and do their best to fend off the mourning doves, just for their share of seed. There is an unmistakable anxiety about their behavior. And from the man at the seed store, I understand that they are right to be anxious! Evidently, since we are in a drought, there simply are not the food resources available to the birds and other wild animals around us that there would be in other Summers. So they are struggling to survive. And the struggle to survive breeds anxiety-- even among the birds on my balcony.
I have no lilies on my balcony, but I do have geraniums. And my flowers teach me not just about the effortlessness of beauty, as Jesus observed, but also about the cycles of change. For my flowers do bloom, but they also lose their blooms. They decay, and they fall away. At any given time, I can see among my geraniums, fuzzy buds, brilliant colors, faded hues, and brown leaves and stems from which life has gone. The entire cycle of life is there, reminding me that it all fits together some how: we do not get the "hello" of buds without also the "good-bye" of dead stems; but then, as life flows from what has passed, it also flows into what is coming. And there is always both passing and coming happening with my geraniums!
At least now... This was not always true... No, really, I mean, it was always true, but I had to learn how to water and prune and feed and care for my plants in order to see it! I had always told myself I had a "brown thumb," but it is more likely I needed to learn how to garden. I needed to learn how to pay attention, to my flowers, and to the birds. Both the flowers and the birds are, I learned, dependent upon me... What a thought!
Not exactly the one Jesus had in mind in Matthew? Perhaps... Maybe one of the things Jesus was saying was that in God the birds and the flowers of the fields had a reliable caregiver. "Your heavenly Father feeds them," he said of the birds; and God "clothes" them, he said of the flowers. So why be anxious if they are not?
Well, it is truly difficult to be as reliant upon God as birds and flowers might seem to be! I mean, the birds would go elsewhere if I didn't feed them, but the flowers would die if I didn't water them. So I take from this two complementary truths.
On the one hand, ultimately, like birds and flowers and all that is, yes, I must rely upon God-- and no, worrying does not add to my growth! It only diminishes each day, each hour, each minute I spend in its acid. But on the other hand, I cannot get by each day without relying on caregiving: on the care I give to myself; and the care I receive from others. If I do not "feed and water" myself nor otherwise avail myself of the "feeding and watering" of those who care about me-- then, well, the result would be truly decay...
So I listen to Jesus, and I hear from him more than Bobbie McFarren's "Don't Worry! Be Happy!" I listen, and I try to attend both to the mundane, and to the ultimate... To each, without losing sight of the other...
I can see that I'm going to have to talk about this from the other side, tomorrow... Ah, what do you know-- some unfinished business! And the promise of another day...
Blessings to you all, and thank you for your care of me!
My front balcony has plants on it, and a bird feeder-- not exactly the "field" of birds and lilies of Matthew 6:25-33, but as close as I'm going to get at the moment. My birds and flowers have taught me a thing or two about living in this world, and what they've taught me may or may not have been what Jesus had in mind.
For instance, we hear a lot these days about how much better it is to view life and living as "abundant," and sure enough, whenever we feel like we are living in scarcity, we are going to find ourselves worrying about whether we are going to "have" enough. Like our insurance companies, I get that connection.
The thing is, Jesus talks as if the birds are free of this, and perhaps in many respects they are. But the ones who come to my feeder are definitely living in a world of scarcity! Even the little sparrows and finches scuffle with one another, and do their best to fend off the mourning doves, just for their share of seed. There is an unmistakable anxiety about their behavior. And from the man at the seed store, I understand that they are right to be anxious! Evidently, since we are in a drought, there simply are not the food resources available to the birds and other wild animals around us that there would be in other Summers. So they are struggling to survive. And the struggle to survive breeds anxiety-- even among the birds on my balcony.
I have no lilies on my balcony, but I do have geraniums. And my flowers teach me not just about the effortlessness of beauty, as Jesus observed, but also about the cycles of change. For my flowers do bloom, but they also lose their blooms. They decay, and they fall away. At any given time, I can see among my geraniums, fuzzy buds, brilliant colors, faded hues, and brown leaves and stems from which life has gone. The entire cycle of life is there, reminding me that it all fits together some how: we do not get the "hello" of buds without also the "good-bye" of dead stems; but then, as life flows from what has passed, it also flows into what is coming. And there is always both passing and coming happening with my geraniums!
At least now... This was not always true... No, really, I mean, it was always true, but I had to learn how to water and prune and feed and care for my plants in order to see it! I had always told myself I had a "brown thumb," but it is more likely I needed to learn how to garden. I needed to learn how to pay attention, to my flowers, and to the birds. Both the flowers and the birds are, I learned, dependent upon me... What a thought!
Not exactly the one Jesus had in mind in Matthew? Perhaps... Maybe one of the things Jesus was saying was that in God the birds and the flowers of the fields had a reliable caregiver. "Your heavenly Father feeds them," he said of the birds; and God "clothes" them, he said of the flowers. So why be anxious if they are not?
Well, it is truly difficult to be as reliant upon God as birds and flowers might seem to be! I mean, the birds would go elsewhere if I didn't feed them, but the flowers would die if I didn't water them. So I take from this two complementary truths.
On the one hand, ultimately, like birds and flowers and all that is, yes, I must rely upon God-- and no, worrying does not add to my growth! It only diminishes each day, each hour, each minute I spend in its acid. But on the other hand, I cannot get by each day without relying on caregiving: on the care I give to myself; and the care I receive from others. If I do not "feed and water" myself nor otherwise avail myself of the "feeding and watering" of those who care about me-- then, well, the result would be truly decay...
So I listen to Jesus, and I hear from him more than Bobbie McFarren's "Don't Worry! Be Happy!" I listen, and I try to attend both to the mundane, and to the ultimate... To each, without losing sight of the other...
I can see that I'm going to have to talk about this from the other side, tomorrow... Ah, what do you know-- some unfinished business! And the promise of another day...
Blessings to you all, and thank you for your care of me!
posted by TRXTR | 12:18 PM
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