Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof (Cf. Mt 6:34)
Here in Nairobi, I stay in a community which provides facilities and programmes for youth trainings and retreats. When I was in this community six years ago, we created a labyrinth in the premises. A labyrinth is a maze-like structure in which people walk prayerfully, and often experience peace and tranquillity. The labyrinth that we have constructed is a type of a prayer garden – you go through one entrance, walk all the way to the centre, and then you make your way out of the labyrinth through another path, finally exiting not far from where you entered. As people walk through these winding ways there are stations to stop by, where they are invited to do some simple symbolic actions in a prayerful way. When I wrote the instructions for these stations, little did I realise the possible impact that these exercises could have on individuals who go through them very carefully. The theme of the third station in this labyrinth is “Dealing with your Worries.” It has a small pond of water with some pebbles lying around.
The other day, I was taking a priest friend of mine around this labyrinth and asking him to do the symbolic exercises rather religiously. Though I was shy in the beginning, he began to really enjoy them. When we reached the third station, I began my instruction (may be, you could try it out in your own garden): Just sit. Look at the water in front of you. Water bodies can bring inner healing. Are you stressed? Is there anything that is disturbing you at this moment? What are you worried about? From the pile of pebbles pick up one small stone! It seems light. It doesn’t hurt. Hold the stone with two of your fingers. Hold it. Hold it as long as you can. Just keep looking at the stone. Can you see the stone gaining weight as it begins to hurt your hand? Hold it, don’t drop it yet. It is the same with worry and anxiety. In the beginning you don’t even notice. When you decide to hold it for long it begins to cause stress. You hurt yourself. What is the worry that you have been carrying within yourself in the recent past? Identify one worry. Now look at the stone. Imagine that this stone is that worry. Concentrate on it. Feel the weight of the stone – the weight of the worry. Hold the stone over the water. Now gently and effortlessly, let go of the stone. Feel your worry disappear into the water. Feel cleansed. Feel free. Enjoy the moment. After a brief pause, I asked him in a low tone: “How do you feel now?” He spontaneously replied: “Relieved. Free!” In the gospel text of today, as we continue to listen to his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us: do not worry. Be free!
What is worry?
It is the mental process of rumination about a negative experience. It is a repeated thinking about the negative experience focussing on impossibilities and their consequences. An online dictionary defines it as “to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts.” I think, worrying is a simpler form of anxiety, and could be associated with stress and trauma. While the influence of some personality types cannot be ruled out in habitual worrying, it could also be an outcome of a certain style of functioning in daily life. My intuition is that people who tend to focus on urgent and unimportant tasks might build a habit of worrying too much (fretting), and end up with anxiety and stress. It could also be a result of lack of some skills in time-management and planning. On the other hand, people who tend to be less worried might be focusing on important and non-urgent tasks. The question is, how do I make out on a daily basis what is more important than another. To me this seems simple: if I have the purpose and mission of my life clearly sorted out, then what contributes to my purpose in life is important, and everything else is only at the periphery! As psychologist William Damon has defined, purpose is a set of goals that are beyond the immediate self.
This simple insight from popular psychology is not isolated from, what I think, Jesus is saying in the gospel of today. Jesus calls us to prioritize: “No one can be the slave of two masters” (Mt 6:24). Jesus invites us to sort out our value system: “Set your hearts on his kingdom first” (Mt 6:33); “That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing” (Mt 6:25). We can render what contemporary psychology is saying in terms of the teachings of Jesus as follows: if I want to enjoy wellbeing, then, the purpose in my life needs to be determined by the values of the Kingdom! But before we go any further, a caveat is in place.
What Jesus is not saying?
He is not encouraging lethargy (or sloth). In the Christian tradition, sloth (in Latin acedia) was classified as one of the ‘deadly sins’. Sloth includes emotional or spiritual apathy, being physically and emotionally inactive, not using the gifts God has given, and at a deeper level not co-operating with the grace of God. Elsewhere in the Gospel of Matthew, in the parable of talents, (Mt 25:14-29), Jesus condemns lethargy and sloth. As someone once told me, as Jesus quotes the example of ‘ the birds of the air’ and ‘ the flowers of the field’, it is insightful to look at that analogy a little more deeply: the birds of the air do not just sit idle and wait for the Creator to bring them food. They work – fly around and scavenge – to get access to the food that the Creator provides for them. And the flowers of the field, as per their nature, continue with the metabolic activities of absorption, transpiration and photosynthesis. They continue to grow.
In talking about worry, I tend to believe that, Jesus is talking about a mental and spiritual state. Let us first take up the mental state. Jesus wisely puts it, “Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life” (Mt 6:27)? Let us demonstrate this with a simple example: let us suppose that you are on a journey. You are driving from your home to a destination that is about 200 kilometres away. You are going to be away for a week. When you have covered a distance of about 50 km you remember not switching off your iron in the house. Or at least you are not too sure if you switched it off or not. Now what do you do? By worrying about it, by ruminating over all the possible disasters, have you made any difference to the situation? On the other hand, you could be focussing on the possibilities: is there someone you could call and inform; is there a neighbour you could call? If nothing is possible, is it not better to focus on the driving and avoid any further mishap? This simple example could be applied to greater realities in life.
The primacy of God in my life
More importantly, the message of Jesus is on a spiritual realm which, of course, could influence our mental state, our daily functioning, and our general wellbeing. Most of our worrying could be a symptom of an ‘Atlas-complex’. Atlas in Greek mythology is a god who literally bears the world on his shoulders. People who worry too much tend to substitute Atlas and take the world upon their shoulders. So Atlas-complex is a state of mind in which a person believes that they are responsible for the whole world. Consequently, they are constantly fretting that this task is too much for them to bear, and that life is a problem. This state of mind could flow from a spiritual pride and a lack of trust in the God who is the Master of history and is in control of the universe.
On the other hand, a personal spiritual revolution puts everything in the right perspective. Yes, I am uniquely created. I have a specific space in the universe. I need to make meaningful choices towards the fulfilment of the purpose of my existence that is oriented towards God. And God is! He is the core of the universe; He keeps all things in being. He provides the meaning to my existence. He constantly assures me: “I am with you” (see Gen 26:24; 28:15; 48:21; Ex 6:6; Is 41:10; 43:5; Jer 1:8; Hag 1:13; Mt 28:20 ). “Fear not” (Mt 1:20; 28:10; Lk 1:13, 30; 2:10; 5:10…)! This is what God assures us in the first reading of today: “Does a woman forget her baby at the breast…? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you” (Is 49:15).
This is what Jesus is inviting us to in the gospel of today: to open ourselves to the working of God, while we continue to choose to fulfil the purpose of our life.
The bookmark of St Teresa of Avila summarises it all: Let nothing disturb you, Let nothing frighten you, All things pass away: God never changes. Patience obtains all things. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing; God alone suffices.