Worry

The last few days I have been thinking about the importance of living in the present. A recent selection from the Upper Room was Mathew 6: 25-34. These are the words of Jesus where he talks about not being anxious about what we will eat,or drink, or wear, or where we will live. These scriptures are a reminder that God has provided a way of living for the natural world and clothed them in beauty, and that if He has done this for birds and flowers, He certainly has not forgotten us as individuals. This passage ends with one of my favorite admonitions: Sufficient unto the day is the trouble there of. I remember my Dad saying this,and I imagine that he learned it from his parents as it is such a stilted translation,perhaps from Old English. He was not exempt from worry, but he understood the great burden that worry is. Paul had some words about worry,too. He said that we should throw off every burden that holds us back and run the race that is set before us. We depend on the Ancient One to provide water stops along the way.

Wordsworth wrote about our tendency to race about doing unimportant things:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon,
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Judging from these sources, worry and concentration on perceived bodily needs is not a recent problem for humankind. And it never stops. The kids think they need the latest backpack and my bedridden mother is afraid she will run out of money to care for herself. I think this is a natural part of humans and indeed to a limited extent is necessary for survival, but it should not be our primary task . Our primary task is the care and feeding of our souls. The first thing that I need to do to attend to my soul is to quiet the clamor the world makes in my head, and remember who I am in relation to God.