Have you ever been anxious? Have you ever felt tightening like gravity crushing at the center of yourself? Have you had memories unyieldingly spinning yarn around your arms? Cinching? Constricting? Always alarmed? Have you ever felt little things quickly becoming heavy?
When someone calm comes along, is their peace contagious? Does slowing time with another soul make burdens become weightless? And if so, where could I find this person?
Thumbing through the sacred pages always feels to me like mages casting good spells from the half-blood prince’s shelf. Who wouldn’t want to learn the secrets from the Creator himself? He even taught a lesson on worry. Though he didn’t begin with commands, he instead asked a question:
Look at the birds of the air;
they do not sow, they do not reap, they do not congregate in cities,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than them?1
As my mind meandered in meditation with the words, my soul found a trail through the verse. Following the faint file in the foliage I came to a seat at the feet of the teacher. I looked upon his face as his eyes held mine. His gravity suspended every atom in time. His humility cared for every little thing. Generously with his gaze, he graced me.
His mother then turned to me and with a single soft stare, I rounded a knoll in my soul arriving at the temple the day she dedicated her child. Before the altar by incense veiled, mother and father were holding doves destined for the law to be fulfilled.2 Raising her head from the infant and avians, she turned to me again and in an instant I resumed my place on the mount where the masses had gathered for his sermon.
I wept.
Anxiety to me felt like I forgot something, failed someone, or fell into believing there will never be enough. Maybe it is me everyone sees as empty? Maybe I’m the one who will never be enough?
But when he rose from the Jordan light fell on him like a dove. He stored no grain and turned no stones into loaves3, yet he feasted frequently with his droves4. Every day was a wedding day in his divine paradigm, though he was clothed in the simplicity of light5. He compared lilies to kings and said of little green things: how much more splendid are these?6 Seek first the kingdom of peace and you will cease striving for necessity. This is the antidote to anxiety.
We should expect in an age where pixels can poison, we will often need potions. Drink frequently and deep of the sacred things. Baptize children so that they too may have memories of their heavenly parents who gave their son like a dove as a sacrifice in love for residence in heaven to all who would remember him. Continue Communion and he will delight in your midst, preparing a place where anxiety can no longer live. Now I can testify, his prescription is medicine and transforms the worried into worthy children.
Until next week,
-Steven
Jesus according to Matthew 6:26
Luke 2:22-24
Matthew 4:4
Matthew 9:14-15
Luke 9:29
Jesus according to Matthew 6:28-29
…pixels are poison…preach!…
I loved reading the way you described your meditation, diving into the pages and being transported into those sacred yet ordinary moments... Thank you for sharing such intimately impactful reflections. Your words have encouraged me to slow down and seek out the opportunity for those encounters with the divine.