Me A Worry Wort?

 A few afternoons ago, I wasted two and a half hours talking with a couple of fellas (with four or five other guys in and out of the conversation) about what a morning talk show host had divulged.  The “red tide” is keeping thousands of tourists from coming to southwest Flrodia.  It is going to wreck the economy while all along the Water Commissioners stand by and let it happen.  That was the brunt of the entire pity pot conversation among us. I Sometimes  think that the media makes a serious effort to keep the watchers, listeners, and readers all anxious, in a state of informed concern and always on the alert against just about everything.  When I think about how I respond:  I often find myself unbalanced, atypical, on guard, and more likely to manufacture fear.  There are more times than I like to admit of taking the advent of 24/7 news, a proliferation of “experts,” and a deluge of “the latest studies,” and out comes to an overdose of worry or outright fear. 

Everyday I am told that education standards are falling, the economy is in shambles, crime is rising, my food is dangerous, predators are on the prowl in neighborhoods, my body is under assault from saturated fats, and I can’t trust my bankers, accountants, or politicians. There are religious fanatics on the loose and weapons of mass destruction waiting to get me. Gas prices are bound to be over five dollars, work seems hard to get, yet there are “help wanted” signs all over the city and on top of it all, the poisoned environment is gearing up to offer a big time payback. 

The constant immersion in such things, the saturation of space, and the occupation of time by these ideas, does not add to the balance of hope, expectation, joy, or comfort. Could it be that into this culture framed narrative that I can listen to a word from another century? Jesus, speaking to his disciples, once said, “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear” Matthew 6:25. How on earth can I not worry? 

Is this possible, is it practical, is it even real? There are whole industries, massive budgets, and multitudes of people, all whose business is marketing worry. Now I’m not exactly suggesting that there is some large scale conspiracy effort to manipulate. What I do mean, however, is that I get caught in living an unreflective life. There are too many times that I’m paying little (or any) attention to the things that may deeply influence or affect me. For example, it is a necessary condition of this economy to keep me restless, dissatisfied, and always seeking, wanting, striving for things, experiences, stuff, education, honors, fun, or whatever. Yet, this perpetual stimulus, as Kenneth Gergen writes in The Saturated Self, indeed has fallout. It leads, he proposes, to a condition of “multiphrenia.” 

I’ve noticed that I and many of my friends jokingly, throw around terms like ADD and many similar symptoms to describe our age. We are distracted, busy, under demand, and more often than not worn out or beaten down. So what am I to do to combat these forces that deeply affect me? When I was a child in Sinclair, Wyoming, I was taught a basic discipline essential to all children in area where walking to school over the old Lincoln Highway was the norm. I was taught to stay away except when when crossing traffic was inevitable, the key was learning to do it safely. Hence, I was taught: Stop! Look! Listen! These three words and practices were drummed into me. So at age seventy, I draw on this. 

Learning to stop is often the beginning point in my harassed life.  Too simply stop and be still. Then, look. Look around, look within, evaluate, and discern. Next, listen. What is it that I hear, see, sense? I’m thinking that culture’s invasive power may be resisted by a simple set of steps that break the hold of intrusion and allow me to reestablish my focus Matthew 6:33. I do remember what it means to have a fresh resolve to live differently, listen carefully, and act intentionally. My desire is to constantly live a fresh life.  One in which my will to live is unleashed.  Socrates is identified as having observed that the unexamined life is not worth living. I’m thinking this is some of the problem for me. I simply let life take over, circumstances dominate, and pressures define me. But a spirituality of resistance learns to say no.

Father, God, I just read what St. Paul wrote to the Philippian congregation, in the New Testament:  “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, and with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” I ask for your help in intentionally living this way in order that your peace will guard my heart and mind.  Please keep me aware that there are vested interests in the promotion of worry and amplified anxiety, yet you being the Lord of history offer an alternative: TRUST IN CHRIST AND BE ANXIOUS FOR NOTHING!   Amen

Getting to God

Thinking about it, I believe most everyone lives in a context of spiritual longing.  I can’t prove it but from my informed experiences over the past forty years I draw that conclusion. I mean by spiritual longing that many people are searching for that which will satisfy an inner craving for meaning and significance.  It checked in the other morning when I read what Damian Hirst, an artist, said a few years ago, "Why do I feel so important when I'm not?  Nothing is important and everything is important.  I do not know why I am here but I am glad that I am.  I'd rather be here than not.  I am going to die and I want to live forever, I can't escape that fact, and I can't let go of that desire."

Then I thought, sitting next to a table of young professionals on their suspected lunch break the other day,  somehow this does not always translate into people finding Christ and starting to follow him. I was reminded by overhearing their conversation of the dizzying array of options when it comes to religion, and the spiritual culture that says that they are all equally valid. To me a profound confirmation hit yet it seemed absolutely bizarre for me to hear one of the young ladies say, what seemed to be in a frustrated tone , "This one way is the truth and the only truth, that's what I think."  The poet Steve Turner describes brilliantly what many think when it comes to religion:  "Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.  We believe he was a good teacher of morals but we believe that his good morals are really bad.  We believe that all religions are basically the same, at least the one we read was.  They all believe in love and goodness, they only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation."

In my experience, there are usually two motivations for dismissing the idea that Christ is the only way to God, and I am reexamining them both. The first objection is that it is arrogant to say that Jesus is the only way.  How could I possibly be so arrogant as to say that all the other religions are wrong and Jesus is the only path to God?  Often the parable of the elephant is used to illustrate the sheer arrogance of Christianity.  It goes something like this: "Three blind scribes are touching different parts of an elephant. The one who is holding the tail says, "This is a rope."  Another holding the elephant's leg says, "This is not a rope; you are wrong.  It is a tree."  Still another who is holding the trunk of the elephant says, "You are both wrong.  It is a snake!"  What I think is the moral of the story is that all religions are like these men.  They each touch a different part of ultimate reality and therefore any one of them is arrogant to say they have the whole truth.

Now, I step back and really give some thought about what is being said here.  Am I really seeing the breathtaking claim that is being made?  Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, and Muhammad are all blind, but in fact, I can see!  These leaders all had a small perspective, but I am the one who sees the full picture.  Now who is being arrogant?  It is just as arrogant to say that Buddha, Muhammad, and Jesus were all wrong in their exclusive claims as it is to say that Jesus is the only way.  The issue is not about who is arrogant, but what is actually true and real.

The second motivation in dismissing Christ, often getting my goat, is often a question of exclusion.  How can you exclude all of these religions? Spiritual culture says, I need to be guilty about that. Jesus may have said he was the way to the Father, but how can I follow him and become an intolerant person who excludes others?  Again, I need to think very carefully about this view because the reality is that whatever position I hold it will exclude something.  It stands to my reasoning that even the person who believes that all ways lead to God excludes the view that only some ways lead to God or that only one way leads to God.  Every view excludes something.  Again, the issue is not about me excluding people, but what is actually true and real.

Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me" (John 14:6).  There are a number of possibilities here for why he might have said this.  My exploring these possibilities brings me to:  First, perhaps he was genuinely a good person but he was deluded.  He was sincere, but he was wrong; he believed that he was the Son of God, but he wasn't.  In other words, he was mentally imbalanced.  Or second, perhaps Jesus knew he wasn't God but went around telling people that he was the only way to God regardless.  In other words, he was a sinister character purposely telling lies.  Or finally, perhaps Jesus was who he said he was.  Perhaps he made these radical statements because they were true and real.  In other words, he is indeed the way to God.