Worrying about Worry

On Monday, my pastor sent me the readings for Sunday, Nov. 17, 2019: Luke 12:22-34.

Only he didn't send it that way.   He sent me the whole text, not just the book, chapter, and verse. As I read, I realized how much I needed to hear that message. I had spent the day wracked with worry. I wasn't particularly worried about my possessions. My car has a banged up fender, and it's not a new car. I've already resigned myself to the fact that rising sea levels will always make investments in South Florida a tenuous bet.

No, I sat in my office worrying about all the people I loved. It was Veterans Day, and I saw pictures of lots of veterans. I worried about the human tendency to wage war, both on the national scale and the personal scale. My high school friend who died too young of esophageal cancer served in the Army, so I had her on the brain. I was worried about my spouse. I thought about how old my parents are getting to be and how I wish I could see them more often. I thought about the fact that my young nephew isn't young anymore, and there's lots of scary teenage stuff that might threaten him. I thought about all of the bad health choices so many of us are making. I thought about how I am scared of being a little old lady, all alone, with no one to share in the porch full of rocking chairs that I plan to have.

I worried about how worried I was. That made me worry more.

Readings like the one in Luke always make me feel guilt about what I cannot do. How to free myself of worry?

I return to that first line, the one about having no fear. Oh, how I need to hear those words, again and again. I am so very fearful.

The rest of the Gospel reminds me that although I’ve got some treasures on earth, I can’t rely on them. The Gospel reminds me to rely on God, who wants to give me all sorts of good things.

The Gospel reminds me that God is the purse that can’t wear out. Over the past decade, it’s the rare person who hasn’t seen how earthly institutions can fail us again and again. We put our trust in our retirement accounts, only to see them dwindle. We pour our efforts into a house, only to see its worth drain away. We place our bets on the sure job, only to realize that our industries have shifted away right out from under us. We work on our relationships and realize how much work there is still to do.


How can we make the indestructible purse, the unfailing treasure? It’s time to return, again, to the practices that the wise ones have told us are important. We can keep watch for God. Our traditions remind us that God will often appear where we don’t expect to find the Divine. Let us open our eyes so that we can see the true treasure.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, November 17, 2019:


First Reading: Malachi 4:1-2a

First Reading (Semi-cont.): Isaiah 65:17-25

Psalm: Psalm 98

Psalm (Semi-cont.): Isaiah 12 (Isaiah 12:2-6 NRSV)

Second Reading: 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Gospel: Luke 21:5-19


This week's Gospel finds us back in the landscape of apocalypse, a landscape where we find ourselves periodically in our Bible readings.

In a way, these readings offer a kind of comfort. To be sure, it's a hard consolation, since these readings promise us that hard times are ahead. But surely we knew that.  If we've lived any amount of time at all, and we're the least bit observant, we see that hard times will always come on the heels of good times. We're currently in one of the longest economic expansions in our living memory, and yet a recession will surely come at some point.  And a long economic expansion isn't good news for the majority of citizens.  We see people engaged in all sorts of social justice struggles, some of which we're fighting all over again.  The cycle of history can feel like a torture wheel--but that's not a new feeling.

We read the words of Jesus, the words that warn we'll be hauled in front of harsh governments, and this indignity we'll suffer once we've lived through famine and pestilence and any other portent of doom. Our families will abandon us, and our friends will desert us. Many of us reading these words this Sunday may not perceive the threat. We're convinced we're safe, that we live under a Constitution that will protect us. But those of us who study the cycles of history know that we're very lucky and that we can't necessarily count on that. Millions of humans thought they were safe, only to find out that in short order, the hooligans were at the gate.

But Jesus offers us encouragement: "This will be a time for you to bear testimony. Settle it therefore in your minds, not to meditate beforehand how to answer; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict" (verses 13-15). Yes, we might lose our lives. But we will gain so much more.

In this time of gloomy news, it's important to take some deep breaths and remind ourselves of what's important. Our friends and families won't always be with us. We can appreciate them while they are. We may be facing trouble at work, but at least we're employed. Even if we're not employed, if we live in the U.S., we have a lot of advantages that we wouldn't have if we lived in, say North Korea or Russia.

A few years ago, my friend John told me about talking to an older black man who came into the state park where John was working. John asked how his Christmas had been. The man said, "Well, we had enough food and no one took sick. So, it was good." Now there's some life wisdom, especially as we turn our thoughts towards the upcoming holidays.

I've always loved Thanksgiving, for many reasons. There's not the pressure of gift giving. The holiday meal is hard to mess up, unless you forget to thaw the turkey. The holiday is rooted, at least in popular imagination, in the idea of colonists saved from the brink of destruction by natives who show them how to live in a new community. The cynical amongst us can deliver powerful counterarguments to my optimism, but for the rest of the month, we can tune them out.

As we get ready for this season, let us remember to be grateful. Let us remember to say thank you, especially to people who might not hear it very often. Let the prophecy of apocalypse from the gospel remind us of our ease of life now and remind us of those who are not so fortunate. Let us keep perspective and remember that we're called to a higher purpose.

A Spot in the Program

Before we go much further, let me record what may have been the biggest life-changing event of the past week.  I've hesitated to mention it, and I've been curious about why I've been hesitant.  Am I superstitious enough to think that I may jinx it if I mention it?  Do I worry that my fortunes will change?

I had an e-mail exchange with the pastor who is the  Director of the Spiritual Direction Certification Program at Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.  The deadline to apply to that program approaches, and he wanted to make sure that I had gotten my application in.  He mentioned that there might be a waiting list, for the first time this year.

I thought, great.  I finally decide this is what I want to do, and just my luck, I'll be put on a waiting list.

I had gotten my application in the mail, but I also submitted a copy electronically, just to be sure.  And last Wednesday, I got this e-mail from him: 

"Fabulous, Kristin. There are spots left, but I’ll make sure you get one of them!

God is with you."

So, I think I've been accepted into the program.  Will I get an official letter?  I don't really need an official letter, but it surprises me how much I want one.

At the WELCA retreat this week-end, I talked to a woman who is a spiritual director.  She came to spiritual direction by way of her work in therapy.  She said she didn't get a certificate; hers was a 3 year program through the Catholic church.  She said she thought that my decision to go the route of spiritual direction would open a lot of doors for me.

I confess, I do love the idea of lots of doors opening.  But even if I knew that no doors would open, I would still do the program.  I am increasingly interested in the idea of discernment, and this program will immerse me in these ideas.

In a larger way, though, I hope to use what I learn to do something (not sure what yet) to be of use to people at midlife.  We do a lot to help younger people discern their future and their calling(s).  There's much that people at midlife need, and I don't see any of our societal institutions doing much of that.

And, of course, because it's me, I hope to also use my various interests in art and creativity in some way.

I have returned periodically to these lyrics by Rhiannon Giddens, from track 11 on her new CD:  "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way. Lord if you love me, keep me I pray. I don't know where I'm going, but I know what to do." Here's a link, if you want to watch everyone playing and singing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Xlyi8Is98

On Friday night, I made this sketch:

I am glad that I will have one of the spots in January.  I am glad that I have a direction, even if I'm not sure where it leads ultimately.

Falling through a Hole in Time

I spent the week-end feeling like I had fallen through a hole in time.  I went to the middle of the Florida peninsula, to the Lake Yale conference center for a statewide retreat for Lutheran women of the ELCA variety.  Once we might have called it a WELCA retreat, but I get the idea that we're in the process of rebranding.

I say we, but I've only been a WELCA member for about 10 minutes, compared to some of the women that I met this week-end.  In fact, during much of my life, I resisted being a WELCA member.  Those women seemed so different from me.

And after this retreat, I still feel that way, to a certain extent.  But to be honest, I often feel that way no matter what group I'm in.  I'm the one reading different books, I'm the one working in a different creative process, I'm the one who has a different family situation.  Maybe that outsider feeling is just going to be a given in my life.  I've always felt on the outside looking in, since I was little.

You might ask about the hole in time comment.  It's been strange to be at a WELCA event, surrounded by people whom I knew in a different time of my life--at a former church, at Synod Assembly.  Or did I know them at all?  So many of them looked like the women I once knew at my grandmother's church.  And then there's the matter of the ones that reminded me of my grandmother.

I also feel like I zoomed back in time because of the conference center itself.  It's such a different kind of conference center than the kind of glossy conference center that so many cities have built to attract groups like the AWP.  It's cinderblock and metal and sand:

The guest lodging reminded me of motor courts of the middle of the 20th century:

It reminded me very much of various gathering spots for churches of my youth.  Many of the bathrooms still had the tile of my youth.  It's the women's room, so we'll use pink tile!

But there was also a lake, a vast expanse of a lake.  It was much more lovely at sunrise than at any other time:

I didn't take my laptop for several reasons.  I wasn't sure there would be wi-fi, and even if there was wi-fi, I decided it would be good to unplug.  And on the morning that I captured the above shot of the sunrise, I was in a fellowship hall with several people tapping on their phones.  I stood up and said, "We're about to miss a beautiful sunrise."  But no one followed me outside--or even looked up.

When I look back on this week-end, what I might remember most is having time to read--one reason why I wanted to leave my laptop at home.  I've really been enjoying Maria Popova's Figuring.  What an amazing exploration of science and creativity and creating an authentic life.  The book focuses most of its time on amazing women throughout history.

It was fascinating being at this retreat surrounded by women, while reading about women who had been trailblazing such a different life than the one that most of us will be able to create.  I may say more on that later, but I may not.  I knew that I would need some less distracted time to make my way through the 500 + page book, and I'm glad that I seized the time this week-end.

It's another way I feel like I fell through a hole in time--the time to read and the material about the past. 

Pentecost Pumpkins

As all the autumnal decorations go on sale, let's remember that they can make great supplies for Pentecost or any other time you need to create images of flames. 

Here's a pumpkin I made, a mix of Pentecost and Halloween. 

Note how autumnal leaves make great tongues of fire.

The Porous Nature of Borders and Walls

In 2005, I went to northeast France with my Mom and Dad.  We went to several other European countries too--just a quick zip across the border for lunch.  We went through checkpoints that were closed, but the apparatus was still there:  the guard booth, the gates that stayed permanently open. 

And those were checkpoints between countries that were friends.

On this day in 1989, one of those checkpoints opened, and history took a different course.  I'm talking about the Berlin Wall.  There had been talk about easing the checkpoints, but no clear plan.  On this night in 1989, after people heard that the borders would open and started to assemble, the guards feared that the gathering would turn violent.  Instead of shooting, they opened the gates.  People spent the week-end tearing down the wall, chunk by chunk.

My best friend from high school had joined the Army in 1987, and she was stationed in West Germany.  I wrote to her to ask if she had been on the scene of any of the historic events we were hearing about in the U.S.  Later, when she returned, she gave me this chunk of concrete:

She said it was part of the wall.  It looks like the kind of thing you might pick up at any construction site.  I wrote a short story that begins this way:  "Kate thinks that chunk of rock is a piece of the Berlin Wall. I let her believe it."  The story is titled "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

I've also written a short story with the title "Border Crossings."  And "Borderlands."  Clearly I've been shaped by the idea of borders.

Once borders seemed so permanent, back when I was a child and the world had been carved into East and West (East/West is a great film about those borders, if anyone needs a primer).  It seemed that some had been born on the wrong side of that border, and it would always be so.

In the 1980's, the idea of borders began to shift.  Now they seem so fluid that we can't count on them at all anymore.  Perhaps it's not surprising that we see a political backlash, a yearning and demanding for borders that are less porous.

But on this important anniversary, let us root for reunification.  Or at least for a level of porousness so that loved ones are no longer separated by brute force.

Days of Death and Leaves

This morning, I went to Facebook, as I often do first thing, as I often wish that I didn't.  I try to justify my Facebook scrolling as a spiritual practice, but I often forget to do the thing I resolve to do, which is pray as I scroll. 

Some days, there is much praying to do--and I'm not even talking about people's political posts.

This morning, I went to Facebook and found 2 different friends had posted about the death of their mothers.  What are the odds of that?

One mother was sick and in hospice, so the news wasn't unexpected.  The other mother wasn't sick, but she was 89 years old.  I wrote messages of sympathy while I prayed.

I think of a few months ago when my friend sent me a Facebook message saying, "My mom died today."  I knew that she was sick, so I wasn't surprised.  I replied right away.

I am fascinated by how we are using these new technological tools.  I know more immediately when someone has died--or at least, I do if I'm connected that day and/or if the algorithm thinks it's important enough to show it to me.  I can offer sympathy immediately.

As with past tools, I am aware of the inadequacy of offering sympathy, whether by way of cards or Facebook message.

This week, I have already been thinking about this time of year in the higher latitudes, when autumn closes in and begins the shift to winter.  I think about the feast days of All Saints and All Souls.  In this time of the time change, the day seems to slip away even faster, which makes me also think about how quickly the year has slipped away and in an even larger sense, how quickly life slips away.

Let me resolve to seize the life that is left.  Let me appreciate my loved ones, particularly my mom, while we're all still on this side of the grave.