Under control!!!

We spend our lives worried and anxious about so many things. I have often caught myself worried and anxious about my future, the next day of work, the next mortgage payment, the next doctor appointment, the next test result, the next operation, the next work meeting, the next conversation, the next assignment, the next day or night in general, the next … the next. For others it is anxiety about the past conversation or experiences… I think if I do this then I have everything “under control”.

When I was younger I couldn’t help ask as I made this discovery, whether I was alone like this or do we all worry and fret over the future, the unknown, the uncertain. I guess it is all relative and in degrees.

Perhaps unhealthy anxiety is the disease of the modern world. It is not only personal as a spiritual director once pointed out. This Carmelite priest reminded me of the “social anxiety” we are surrounded by. How anxious is our world? The rise of modern means of communication especially satellite and pay TV as well as social media bringing with it the 24news channels and the epidemic of the breaking news culture is a perfect platform for social anxiety to arise.

We are reminded every second of the day of bad news around the world. News from all over the world almost about every member of the 7+ billion people in our world. Not any news but the most shocking and horrific news. You might say after an hour of watching breaking news, how can you not be anxious? It’s like we are trying to make each other feel anxious.

You know when we hear bad news we can’t hold onto to it, so we tell the next person we meet because we are so disturbed by it. This is how I feel about modern news agencies but with a hidden agenda.

And then there is the other form of social anxiety, the ever repetitious ads and marketing ploys of insurance companies reminding that if we are not anxious then there is something wrong with us so we must be alert to the risks and dangers out there. Dangers from driving, from health disasters, from fire and natural disasters and from death. So just as we have the questions, they have the answers, “life time warranty”.

So all of this we are absorbing consciously and unconsciously and so one cannot be surprised why we are so anxious. Why our personal anxiety, which may have been grounded in childhood experiences and triggered by personal issues, is further inflamed by the social platform.

So where to from here? Psychologists call for a deeper understanding of the causes as a beginning, cognitive behaviour therapy and then teach strategies to manage the anxiety. These range from relaxation exercises, meditation and relaxation, exercise, music and many other strategies.

All of this works and changes peoples’ lives. Yet the deeper question that we all have to face is how to deal with uncertainty? No amount on insurance can heal us. No amount of human guarantees can satisfy us. Our fear of death lurks in the background of all of this as the greatest uncertainty. Perhaps it is what feeds our deepest anxieties. Perhaps uncertainty means we are not in control and I know for me that’s frightening.

Yet Jesus has an approach. Jesus’ radical trust in the Father is the key to heal our hearts. A radical trust that involves “giving up” control, a trust that does not deny reality and the suffering of everyday but rather transcends it. It is able to transcend all uncertainty and the greatest uncertainty of all, that of death where we are totally NOT in control and into God’s hand.

This is not through a fairytale story about heavens and the long beard man awaiting us but rather one that calls us to deeper transformation here, where we practice giving up control and trusting. A radical letting go and abandonment to the God who is pure Presence. A radical decision to be present in the NOW where God IS. This “being with” God in the here and now is what prayer is. It is the beginning of heaven when we are in total union with God.

Just look at the life of Jesus. Look at its beginning and the temptation in the desert. Have look at the shortcuts and the earthly guarantees he was offered and have a look at his response “Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only” (Mt 4:10). Indeed it is in our relationship with God where the deep healing takes place.

Jesus’ secret was his intimate knowledge that he is “the beloved son” of God. The inner voice of love that accompanied him at every moment of his life especially on the Cross.

Yet Jesus spoke at the heart of our modern disease when he reminded us in Matthew Ch 5 and said: “Do not be anxious about your life”. He called us to look at the birds who the Father “feeds” and to consider the lilies in the field who God “clothes”. And then he asks: “Can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

To be centered in God is the great grace for a life filled with inner peace and gratitude. To spend time in daily prayer, in silence, in meditation and contemplation, to abandon oneself, “to give up control” to the One who is present is life giving and above all “freeing”.

To slow down, to be silent and be present at “the water well” of the Divine Presence and hear that “I am the beloved Son or daughter”. This means that I am “already” loved. I have done nothing to be here. I am here “out of my control” and this freely given umerited life that I am living needs to be the source of my gratitude.

This centeredness is the key to deal with anxiety, to trust everything over to God. And the paradox is that God alone is the One to whom when we “give up” control to, when are “given back” fullness of life.
Cultivating our interior life opens us up to trust in the divine who fills our deepest thirst and then we can become free flowing “streams of life giving water”. But that is a life long task.