A prayerful reflection on the experience of God available to us within creation

*Throughout the season of Lent I have been challenging myself to undertake a practice of written prayer.  I've not been successful every day in writing out prayers but I thought I would share the prayerful reflection that I wrote today.

 

 Light.  Light dawns in the morning.  Its rays warm the earth, causing a rush of hopeful growth.  It energizes us, entering through our skin and eyes, so that every part of us can know we are alive and feeling. And so we are brought to an awareness of everything around us and offered the opportunity to participate in the experience of what is beautiful. The sun shines on both righteous and corrupt, on both rich and poor.  God, your grace is in the light.  Your love is in the light.  Your corrective consequence is in the light - that in our greed it might burn its memory into us or scorch the very things it nourished.  If we can take in the rays of your light, might we also transform and grow?  Might we also feel the fire ignite within us as the underbrush clogging our souls is lit to the point where we may feel that we are being consumed?  There is both safety and risk in the light.  God, you are not a safe God.  You are in the light.  

And, this is not all of you.

 Rain.  Clouds cover the sky dimming the light and rain pours over the earth, refreshing places that the sun has scorched, encouraging growth in equal measure.  Rain is available around us yet we may choose to not partake in its sensations.  Nonetheless it offers us its gifts.  It nourishes deep places; it echoes and sanctifies the melancholic.  In nature's act of weeping there is joy, there is healing.  Yet at times the rain torrents down and we who were not prepared are confronted by the floods, learning in these moments the lack of safety we find in our structures and what safety we can find in supporting one another.  Your mercy is in the rain.  You love is in the rain.  Your urge for cooperation and unity, for the discovery of a common humanity is in the rain.  Some may try to separate themselves from these gifts, but Lord, your rain still falls around them, inviting them to participate in that melancholic flow that pushes us through discomfort into connection.  There is both joy and sadness in the rain.  God, you are not one-dimensional in your presence.  You are in the rain. 

 Through light, rain and darkness you prompt us into seasons of change.

 Dark.  Dark comes at night, that absence of light as the world is coated in a hush of obscurity.  There is quiet in the dark and stillness as we are called into a pause.  Here we hear the sounds that were ignored in the light: the worries, the threats to safety, the pangs of loneliness, the aches of the soul.  Our vision becomes limited and we feel the urge to find our hearth, that place of security that we call home.  The dark makes us aware of our vulnerability and our limits. In the experience of this humility, we are given greater opportunity to encounter the illumination that is immaterial, that which comes from you.  God, you are in the dark.  Your still small voice speaks in the dark.  You offer us love in the dark as we become confronted with our weakened states.  You call us to rest, and in doing so we become restored and prepared once again to face the light.  Maybe we bring in artificial light and sound to crowd out the discomfort we feel in the darker places, but your dark remains there beckoning us to participate, to take that plunge into vulnerability and stillness and find a strength that transcends our acts of doing.  Yes, there is both fear and courage in the dark, vulnerability and strength.  God, you are mystery, both known and unknown, and it is in the darkness that our humanity meets your divine presence.  Within the darkness, the mystery of the unknown becomes our place of rest.  It is in the darkness that the material and the sacred meet.

Do not worry? Mindfulness for the distracted mind.

Matthew 6:25-26, 34 

 "For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body as to what you will put on.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not worth much more than they?...So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own."

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Philippians 4:6

"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."

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There is something that has been bothering me recently about how I have heard some Christians interpret these verses.  Namely the trouble is when people begin to emphasize the imperative sense of "Do not worry." or "Do not be anxious."   When they do this, it seems they think that we should not experience worry or anxiety at all as people of faith.   Instead I watch as people begin to judge themselves and feel ashamed about their anxiety.  Worry becomes something to be worried about and anxiety is something that generates an even greater sense of anxiety.

I decided today to dig into the original meaning, context and spirit that these verses were written in. The Greek word that we usually translate as "worry" or "anxiety" is merimnaō which according to one source literally refers to "a distracted mind".  Another interpretation I found was "to be unduly concerned by."  The interesting thing to note about this word is that it is used in multiple contexts within the New Testament - both with positive and negative connotations.  This is important!

Let's take a moment to talk about worry and anxiety from biological point of view.  Anxiety is an emotion that is closely related to fear.  We actually have a part of our brains that is devoted to generating and processing this emotion of fear; it's called the amygdala.  When our amygdala is affected we move into fight or flight mode.  This is a survival instinct: it is there to generate the energy we need to take action immediately!  If I see a car careening towards me while I'm out for the walk I need that energy to dodge out of the way - I might need to move faster than I can process what is going on! (Freeze and fawn also exist but they are most adaptive in situations where fight and flight are not possible).   Anxiety is an emotion that also activates the amygdala, kind of like a low-grade fear; I've even heard anxiety described as "energy with nowhere to go".  

It is important for us to know this biological reality because God created the capacity within our minds for anxiety and worry.  Wouldn't it be silly for God to give us this reflex and then tell us to not be anxious?  It would be like we have been doomed to fail!  To interpret these verses effectively, then, we need to realize that there is both a helpful and unhelpful context to feeling anxiety.  All emotions exist for a reason, a God-given reason.  Accessed in a healthy way they give us important information about our environment and lives that helps us to be pro-active, that helps us find the wisdom that we need to respond effectively.  Interpreting the verses I wrote above as "do not feel the emotion of anxiety" does not match the reality of how God created us.

Now, let's talk about worry.  Worry is often treated as being synonymous with anxiety, but interestingly enough it does have an important distinction.  Worry is one of the few words in the English language that both can be used to describe an emotion and a behaviour, in fact it links the two.  The word "worry" conjures the sense of a person going through things in their mind over and over again, to be cognitively preoccupied with a concern.  Anxiety by contrast can take place without thoughts - I can feel a knot in my stomach, or a fluttering in my chest, I can find it hard to breath and I might not know what is going on in my mind to stir that emotion.  When I look at the meaning of the original Greek word "a distracted mind" or "to be unduly concerned by" this seems to highlight the thinking component that is inherent to worry.  It suggests that the way to change our physical experience of worry is to change our thoughts. 

Change our thoughts?  Anyone who gets caught up in worry spirals knows that this is easier said than done!  Yet, there is something in literal Greek definition of worry, merimnaō, that hints to what we can target in order to experience relief from unhelpful worry and anxiety.  The problem is not in thinking about the things that concern us - sometimes we need to do that!  The problem is actually when the concerns that we have distract us from being able to participate in the rest of life.

So, how do we deal with a distracted mind?  The answer lies in developing the capacity for mindfulness.  Mindfulness is a word that refers to the quality of non-judgmental attention that we bring to the present moment.  It is a skill with several skill subsets, of which I will name four:

1.  Observe - when we use this skill we are simply noticing, and the noticing can take place externally (i.e. seeing what is going on in our environment with our five senses) or internally (i.e noticing what thoughts are going through our head or what emotions we are feeling in our body). Often we get distracted unintentionally - our mind wanders off without permission and we don't even notice!  The first step then in dealing with a distracted mind is to notice where our attention is at.
   
2. Non-judgmentally - this skill means that we choose to not judge what we are noticing. We recognize worry is in itself not wrong, and also sometimes we can be preoccupied with worry in an unhelpful way.  Rather than focusing on what we think we "should" or "should not" do or what we think is "good" or "bad" we recognize whether the action that we are engaging with is helpful or unhelpful, and we don't judge ourselves for doing the action, instead we focus our energy to problem solving what would be more helpful for us.  A simple non-judgmental thought you can use when noticing yourself worry is "Oh! There my brain goes worrying again! :) " and then non-judgmentally shift your attention back to what you were doing before the worrying started.
   
3. Participate - when we participate we are throwing ourselves into whatever activity we are doing with 100% of our attention.  If we are having a conversation with friends we are 100% present and not in judgmental or analytical mode.  We are not preoccupied with what we are doing later after the conversation, or what happened earlier in the day - we are fully engaged.  One fun way to know if you have fully participated in an activity is if you lose complete track of time because you were so immersed in whatever you were doing.
4. One-mindfully - When we do things one-mindfully this means we are intentionally putting our attention into only one thing.  This skill overlaps a bit with the others - we can observe one-mindfully or we can participate one-mindfully.   For example, if we are chopping carrots for dinner then we are focused only on chopping carrots.  We might intentionally direct our attention towards the feel of the carrots in our hand, the feel of knife on the cutting board; we focus on the movement and the act that we are engaged in, breaking it down into its smallest components.  We might not lose track of time when we do things one-mindfully because sometimes it can take a lot of attention and effort to make our mind slow down and take things one at a time.  But, if we develop this skill we actually develop the capacity within ourselves to control where we direct our attention (and it does get easier with practice!)
   

From a mental health perspective, the Bible has a lot of great advice in terms of how to deal with anxiety and worry effectively.  Being focused on the present moment instead of focused on the future (Matthew 6:25-26, 34), prayer and gratitude (Philippians 4:6) are all mindfulness practices that I will sometimes bring into therapy to help clients shift their emotional experience away from anxiety.  If we choose to look at these verses as prescriptive rather than imperative, we may find the insight we need to bring about the change to shift our distracted mind from worry towards what we actually want to be focusing on in the moment.

The Story of Zacchaeus and Unconditional Positive Regard

Luke 19:1-10

 

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. 

 

When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. 

 

All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.” 

 

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.” 

 

Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” 

 

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 It's interesting to revisit old Bible stories I learned as a kid, now that I have several years of practicing psychotherapy experience under my belt.  I can't help but see these stories differently as I apply perspectives about trauma, sociology and mental health that were for so long not explicit in our social understanding.  After all, psychology is a relatively new discipline, credited in western culture to Sigmund Freud at the end of the 19th century.  But before the founding of psychotherapy as a scientific discipline mental health treatment was the domain of spiritual and religious practice.  As such, stories like the one above may have just as much to say about mental wellness as they do about spiritual wellness (in fact, one could say the two are synonymous).

In listening to this Bible story only a few days ago I found my mind instantly conceptualizing Zacchaeus as though he was a client, as details from the story leapt out at me.  When I heard that Zacchaeus was "small in stature" I wondered to myself if it was like for him as a kid?  In modern days it is way more common to experience bullying, especially for boys, if they are smaller in size compared to their peers.  This is evidence in the animal kingdom too: size often equals power.  If Zacchaeus was small as a kid, does that mean that he was bullied?  Does that mean he struggled from an early age to find any sense of acceptance and belonging among his peers?  

 

When I consider implications about physical stature, I also have to start wondering about the balance of nature and nurture.  Height and size is certainly influenced by genetics, but it is also influenced by nutrition.  In modern days one reason why we grow so tall compared to our ancestors has to do with the quality and amount of food we eat.  It's hard to determine whether Zaccheaus was underfed compared to his peers, but what if he grew up in a disadvantaged position?  What if his family was poorer?  What if food was in more scarce demand?  What if Zaccheaus' height implies that he was someone who found himself at an early age coming up short (pun not intended) where broader societal systems of power were concerned?

If all these assumptions or even half of them are true, then it is no surprise that Zacchaeus sought out employment as a tax collector.  In fact, I can't help but admire the resourcefulness of his internal system at this point.  Zacchaeus found a way to rise above the disadvantages implied by his height: he became a tax collector with the might of the Roman army behind him.  If there was scarcity of food before, now there was abundance.  If there was oppression before, now he was the one who could hold the balance of power against others.  The position might have been reviled by his countrymen but it would have offered safety and status that Zacchaeus perhaps previously felt like he didn't have access to.

 

After contemplating Zacchaeus' height and the possible implications that may have had, it becomes apparent why being reviled and considered as a sinner by his countrymen might have not been a such a dealbreaker for him in taking on the tax-collector role.  What if with a history of already being bullied Zacchaeus felt like had nothing to lose by being hated by other people?  What if the way he treated his fellow countrymen only felt fair for the way they had treated him?  In today's culture where we are told to give as good as we get and everyone needs the last word, isn't this behaviour incredibly human and understandable?  And yet there seemed to be something missing. Despite all the power he could now assume, Zacchaeus seemed to be struggling to get the one thing that could be considered one of the most basic human needs: belonging.

In Maslow's hierarchy of needs belonging is the third most basic need of a human being, right after physical sustenance and safety.   Brené Brown talks about the differences between belonging and fitting-in her book Braving the Wilderness.  When we just "fit in" we have to compromise who we are to become what we think we should be.  It is a process inherent with shame - that something about ourselves is not acceptable by others.  Taken to an extreme the need to fit in can cause an exiling of these parts and result in anxiety, depression, self-worth and identity issues, and a profound sense of loneliness.  When we belong, by contrast, every part of ourselves is accepted and given worth as we are given the freedom to express who we are without judgment or shame, when we are met with the same enthusiasm and curiosity that we offer to others.

 

What if this sense of belonging was something that Zacchaeus had never experienced?

 

Consider then how revolutionary it might have felt to Zacchaeus' world to have Jesus invite himself over to dinner, to essentially say to Zacchaeus "I accept you. With me you can belong."  All the criticism in the world may have only served to further cement Zacchaeus in his tax collector role, where he could protect himself with safety and power, and yet this act of love and acceptance seemed to melt down all the barriers and bring about the most revolutionary shift in his life.  

A mentor once described mental-emotional healing to me as "being able to speak our truth in a place where we can be accepted without judgment."  In psychotherapy circles this is also known as unconditional positive regard, identified by Carl Rogers as being one of the most essential elements of psychotherapy.  It is the unconditional positive regard offered by the therapist to the client that allows the release of shame, that offers an opportunity to belong.  In spiritual circles unconditional positive regard might be given a different term: love.  1 Corinthians 13:4–8a describes love as the following:

 

 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

 

In today's society, where spin is everything at the expense of the truth, where resentments fester in an urge to be right, where right vs. left, red vs. blue, dismissive divisive political thinking insists that we must fight to the bitter end in order to get our own way, it seems we could have a lot to learn from the story of Zacchaeus.  If we want people in our lives to change that is unlikely to come with judgmental criticism, with the need to prove that we are right more than they are.  In fact, criticism and judgment may only serve to further cement others deeper into their patterns. Paradoxically, change may only come once we stop insisting that the the other side changes, and extend an offer of acceptance and belonging instead.

 

There is a story I heard of not very long ago about a man named Daryl Davis.  Daryl Davis was a blues musician and a black man.  Over the course of his life he made a habit of befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan.  It might seem crazy to those of us who consider racism "evil" that a black man would aim to befriend members of a white nationalist group known for embracing racism.  And yet Daryl Davis' willingness to show these people unconditional positive regard caused a shift for hundreds of members of this group.  By the time Daryl Davis died over 200 members of the Klan had given up their robes. It wasn't criticism that caused change.  It was love.

 

Notably in the Bible story, Jesus did not ask Zacchaeus to change.  He simply asked to eat dinner at Zacchaeus' house.  But when Zacchaeus was met with the gift of unconditional acceptance something shifted inside of him.   It was not required of him, and yet in that moment he freely chose to change.  He didn't give up the role of tax collector but rather resolved to pay back anyone he had defrauded.  Implicit to this decision is the willingness to let go of past resentment and the intention to act with integrity and compassion in the future.  It seems Zacchaeus chose in that moment to live into forgiveness. This is why "salvation came to his house": because in that moment he let go of a burden that he had been carrying.  Zacchaeus experienced mental, emotional and spiritual healing.

So this is what I heard as I listened to the story of Zaccheaus.  It isn't criticism or judgment that causes change.  Rather change and healing come with unconditional positive regard, with acceptance and belonging.  With love.