He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not
worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will
wear. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and
your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and
these things will be given to you as well. Luke 12:22,30,31
Concern is part of any reflective life. We are stimulated to
plan our lives as we focus on our chief values and concerns. Some concerns are
momentary and others have long range impact.
On Sunday I was taking services for a friend in a suburban
parish where the property taxes alone run twenty to thirty thousand dollars
annually. I could not afford to live there which is fine.
My eight o'clock server had just been accepted at a college in Boston and was
filled with joy. His tuition, room and board would be fifty thousand annually.
(He did not mention this. I researched it for this blog.)
At coffee hour these were not the concerns expressed but
rather his success in school, and family and parish pride in him. The primary
concern was his future and happiness and becoming and how much possibility
Boston would offer. My offering was to recommend two parishes where he might
find other students his age with whom to grow in faith. His Mom said, "Thanks.
I had not even thought about that." Some concerns settle in later.
Worry in another level. Perhaps this family has been planning
for the taxes and tuition and have learned how to balance it all. Worry might
set in if they have to stretch too far. Anxiety often follows when concerns are
not manageable.
I worried early when we planned for our daughter. I made
choices to be able to afford her education. I was not overly anxious as we went
through her five years of college, but I remained concerned to plan well.
Choices had to be made to hold it all together. Belt tightening was my watch
word.
In today's Gospel Jesus tells his disciples, "Therefore I
tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body,
what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than
clothing." Luke 12:22-23.
Worry unlike mere concern is a bit obsessive and lacks trust.
The advent of worry has an antidote and that is spiritual practice. Part of
spiritual practice is prayer where we take our concerns and open them to self
and God and sometimes others in a reflective way. Here we set priorities that
settle in on us as in line with God's values for us. Usually there is some
trimming of our lives. We can come to see what is core and what is fluff. God
usually calls us to stay with the core. What is fluff may be left on the cutting
room floor. When our daughter was young and I was concerned to plan, what was
trimmed by me for years was cable TV and we coupon shopped. But we were clothed,
we ate, we were sufficiently presented. No cable TV did not please her but it
was a lesson for us both. Priorities must be kept.
Another spiritual practice is disciplined giving beyond
ourselves which gets us outside ourselves as center to life. The biblical model
is the tithe. It had long been the custom of our house that this ten percent
was not ours but God's. The giving of it had long ago shaped other choices. We
wasted little but had what we needed. There was early discernment about what
was core and what was fluff, what was essential and what was extra. There was
satisfaction that we were stakeholders in creating God's reign by prayer and
practice, by supporting charitable work that aided those with less and spiritual
centers that taught faith and values and helped us reflect on core concerns. We
felt the joy of being part of God's generosity.
Did we worry? Sometimes we did, but each month as the
charitable checks were written we were also centered in this joy and setting
priorities. Somehow this was an antidote for anxiety perhaps because it
clarified priorities. It also reminds me to this day not only am I dependent on
God, but I am allowed into God's generous core and can feel the pleasure of
being there. I believe this is so because we thus choose priorities which focus
all else we do.
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