When Christ Displaces Worry at the Center of Your Life

It is wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Philippians 4, The Message 

The Message translation of Philippians 4, in Eugene Peterson's Remix: Pause, a Daily Reading Bible, ends with this statement.  "This selection leaves you with a couple of assignments:  turn your worries into prayer, and meditate on God's best rather than on the ugly things of the world.

As Peterson translates it:  You'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious - the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.  

For me, taking capture every thought is so very hard.  It would be impossible without mindfulness.  How often before my practice did my mind go racing with me completely unaware that I could control its direction.  

Garbage in, garbage out, they say.  So mindfulness, plus a conscious effort to see and hear what is good, helps.  Conscious turning of the mind to praise, gratitude and petition also helps.  At some point, I pray my mind will be less of an out-of-control sled on an icy hill,  and more of a walk in the woods. 

The Day Begins

Perhaps it would be a good idea, fantastic as it sounds, to muffle every telephone, stop every motor and halt activity for an hour someday to give people a change to ponder for a few minutes on what it is all about, why they are living and what they really want. 

- James Truslow Adams

Is there anything better than Sunday afternoon in the three-day weekend?  Perhaps there is an hour to ponder about life, to think about what you really want and to prioritize. 

Even organization books call on you to list your top priorities and then evaluate your schedule against them. So what does the day look like if your top priority is to be conscious of the presence of God moment by moment?  It involves staying in the moment, step by step.  But without handrails, my steps would soon go off course. 

The intention to stay on course was undoubtedly the inspiration for the Liturgy of the Hours and other forms of monastic scheduling. I have adapted some of the ideas behind this to help me stay on course.  

It starts in the morning. When I awake, I do reach out to the Lord and remind myself that "This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it."  I wake early because we do 20 to 30 minutes of centering prayer followed by reading aloud from both the Old and New Testaments.  I pray over my schedule and take a moment to write a sentence or two in my prayer journal.  On days when we are able, I prepare a tranquil breakfast with love and we share it. 

The day begins.

The Music of the Night

Walking mindfully outdoors, even from my car to the office door, has helped me to hear some of the sounds of my childhood:  my friends, the crickets. We didn't have air conditioning when I was growing up.  We also didn't have the fear that causes people, including me, to lock things up tight at night.

As a child, when I went to bed in summer, the light was just starting to dim.  I heard crickets.  The fan in the room.  And my parents talking outside on the patio.

Listening mindfully at night, I can go back to those times when I felt perfectly safe with the windows wide open. Then I bring myself back into the present moment, and I know I am safer than I realize.

Letters from last year

This is a lesson that comes slowly to many people. They have too little patience with their nature's pace. There are too easily discouraged by their partial successes or repeated failures. In their immaturity, they are not willing to continue their efforts with such slow visible progress. They grow tired of reading the same matter, thinking the same thoughts, striving for the same virtues, and facing the same defects. They do not realize that as long as they are in this life, temptations will continue to face them. Labors will still require their attention and energy. Suffering of body, mind or soul will always be present in some degree.  Once when they have arrived before the judgment seat of God may they hope to hear the words: "Well Done, good and faithful servant." Only then will their task of striving for Christian perfection be over. 

Anthony J. Paone, S.J. 

A year ago, the pastor of the Support and Recovery Ministry had all of us working in the ministry fill out a form answering two questions:

1. What do you want to see God do IN you this year?
2. What do you want to see God do THROUGH you this year?  

A few days ago, I got an envelope in the mail from church containing my answers.

1.  In me ... Grant me the graces to deal with the crises without losing a sense of peace or my sense of humor.
2.  Through me ... Bring hope to the hopeless and encouragement to the discouraged.

My husband and I looked at our answers ... he filled it out, too.  And he said, "Well, I saw you bring hope to the hopeless and encouragement to the discouraged.  That actually did happen. And you did keep your sense of humor."

Keeping my sense of peace ... not so much. I immediately felt like I had failed, but the words from Anthony Paone, which I cut out and pasted on a card decades ago,  are a good reminder that we are never going to be 100% successful in our goals. My sense of peace is often tied to my ability to stay in the present moment.  So that's what I'll write on the card if asked about it this year at ministry kick-off.  

Ring! Ring!

The Proverbs 31 woman was not controlled by her circumstances and the demands of her family, her household, or her home business.  She was the ruler of her attitudes, her time and her schedule. Her relationship with God was central. All that she became was the result of her yielding to His sovereign control. 

Linda Dillow

"Calm My Anxious Heart" 

On today's Festive, Frugal Friday, I have been running from meeting to meeting. I want to yield, but I forget.  I even forget my plan to have a mindful pause every time the phone rings. 

That's been one of the hallmark practices of mindfulness.  I first heard it on a Thich Nhat Hanh CD.  Whenever you hear a bell ... the phone rings, the alarm, the bells at a school, the bells at a church ... take a moment to be mindful of God's presence.

It will help you to dwell in God's shelter, and as we all know:  "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of The Lord, 'He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." 

Forest Bathing

Yesterday we spent 90 minutes in forest bathing.  What???

Forest bathing is a Japanese practice for mindfulness and stress reduction.  It's basically walking quietly through a forest in the moment, observing it step by step, tree by tree.  Listening to the birds and the insects. The best time, of course, is when you can be more solitary.  Otherwise you hear comments like this one: "I looked up my mother-in-law's salary online."  Honest.

Try forest bathing when you are feeling stressed.  It might help!

Waiting for Hope

"Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope.  I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope." 

George Matheson

The difference between "mindfulness" and "Christian mindfulness" is practicing the presence of God.  In Christian mindfulness, we seek to remember God's presence moment by moment as we pay attention to one thing at a time.  

In the back of my mind on this Serene Sunday is disappointment, highlighted by the suicide of Robin Williams and the racial disturbances in St. Louis County.  It's the personal disappointment of prayers for my children's mental health that have been going on multiple times a day for 30 years.  And it's disappointment that so much racial hatred still exists.  I spent the first 10 years of my career in rural Mississippi observing it, and I spent the last year dealing with people in St. Louis County who said very racist things and then denied that they were racist. 

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick," Proverbs says. So this day I am going to realize that I can't possibly cure the mental health of my kids or solve racial issues in St. Louis County. I am going to spend my day waiting for hope. Trying to walk mindfully with the Lord on today's agenda:  a long walk in the forest to visit eagles nesting on the river, a trip to a giant book store, "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss"  (the Christmas Story family goes on vacation ... it's on YouTube and it's one of my favorite movies).  I pray as I walk conscious of the Lord that his hope will seep back into my soul.