St. Augustine prays that our hearts are strained “until they rest in Thee.” He observes that anxiety over what tomorrow may hold is a sign that our hearts are homeless.
Several years ago, when I was a seminarian busy widening my spiritual rings, I started hanging out with monks. This was not a choice. I was told by teachers to go to the local Order of the Holy Cross to receive spiritual direction while I sought to become ordained in the Episcopal Church. Well, I had never thought that I might need a one on one, “religious therapist.” I hadn’t needed any therapy in the past … although in retrospect, I probably could have used plenty. Couldn’t I just go to church, and then do my schoolwork like all the other work I had done seeking degrees? NO. I needed to be taught how to work on my spirituality, especially while undergoing the challenges and anxieties of seminary and ordination.
I began to realize, slowly, that meaningful endeavors, even those that engage our passions, help others, spiritually enlighten us and financially support us, demand, on the flip side, some “intense” relaxation.
Anxiety translates from the Greek as “split attention” or “divided concern” as in driving in a car and talking on the phone, for example. Well, multitasking is my greatest skill but it splits my life between God and things.
I can’t be truly grateful and super busy at the same time. An anxious state closes the door of hospitality to strangers, the purse to human needs and can be a destructive force in our widening rings of relationships and community.
In addition to talking with a spiritual director, I started learning centering prayer with the brothers at their house in Berkeley, CA. “Quiet days’ were offered for spiritual regeneration. We would come in and share a muffin and tea while chatting in low voices. Then we would all wander off to a corner of the house or garden to sit for a few hours, stretching as needed. Lunch was a silent affair, as we shared a modest meal. This was followed by an afternoon of silence. By 5 pm it was time to come together, say our farewells and head home feeling a strange sensation: peace.
As many of us have found, this peaceful centering helps bring together our scattered lives.
High achievers can be especially anxious creatures, who even though they mean well, they fuel the brokenness in themselves and the world. There are so many dysfunctions they fall into if the spirit is not kept sound. I don’t need to list those things we all use to fill our spiritual “hole”. We all know what they are. I have achieved academic and professional success, have the blessings of relationships, family and relative financial comfort, but I still often wonder what I am doing in this life; I feel a inner hole; I am an anxious person in need of grace.
I have spent time with homeless, hungry, incarcerated people and they can be more open to the spirit than we achievers because they have lost everything. Lose yourself and all that you have accumulated so that you can find out who you are, Jesus tells us in the gospels. Maybe some of us are not ready and do not need to give away all our money, put on sack cloth, or join an intentional community, but a daily dose of spiritual centering, a refreshing time out with quiet and prayer can make us present to our needs and our gifts. We realize we are on a path: we try, we sometimes fail, we try again.
Could it be that anxiety is really God’s tug; a hunger planted in each one of us that nags and turns us around and makes us restless for the true bread of life, despite our accomplishments in the world?
The gospel, which I will be proclaiming in this parish in the coming months, is full of stories – Good News – about a refreshing love. This love seeks us when we wander, beckons us to find refreshment when we are empty and anxious with the rewards of the widening rings; It calls us to keep on center so we can come home again and again.
– Susanne George, Deacon