“Do not be anxious, consider the flowers, the ravens....” Matthew 6/Luke 12.

“Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid...” John 14

“Perfect love casts out fear...” 1 John 4.

Way back in seminary, I recall a quip by a guy named Ray Newell: “Do you think the reason the Bible says over and over to love and not be afraid is because they weren’t any better at it then, than we are now?”

Jump a few years. I remember a comment made by Ben Padgett in his hospital chaplain days. When asked what he said to patients and families in scary situations, he said it was more about listening. But on occasion he would say something like this: “If you have to go through this thing, you might as well let it teach you something. What are you learning?”

Time machine to the 90’s at Tuscaloosa 1st UMC: I heard Dr. Lonnie Strickland, a UA Professor of Strategic Management (sometimes consultant to large companies and small countries) say humorously and seriously, “If I don’t wake up in the middle of the night once a week or so in a cold sweat anxious about all I have to get done, then I figure I’m not paying attention.”

(All three of these quotes are Morgan memory filtered. Thanks and apologies to Ray, Ben, and Lonnie.)

Okay, here I may be “telling too much of my guts” as one of my matriarch grandmothers often cautioned me, usually unsuccessfully, not to do.

Not every night or week, thankfully, but often enough, I wake up hoot owl, wide-eyed 4 am-ish. For reasons I do and don’t understand, my lifelong personal ball of anxiety shows up again.

It’s hard to pin anxiety down. It’s a dimension of fear...an aspect of worry. Sometimes it’s a fur ball of insecurity somewhere between my chest and stomach. Occasionally, a bowling ball. Can I pull off what I have to do? Can I make it, take it? Health stuff. Family stuff. Regret stuff. Job stuff. Financing retirement with the Wall Street roller coaster? Life clock ticking-tocking away. Multiplied pandemically of late. And hey, that’s my tiny world. There’s the gigantic, scarier than ever, world ball of fear out there.

What’s more, I experience a few folks who seem seamlessly woven together, shimmering with confidence. If something is out of whack, they seem to telegraph it must be you, certainly not them. I wonder do they know something I don’t know or do I know something they don’t. Whatever, that’s not me.

Mid-twentieth century was dubbed “The Age of Anxiety.” WW1, the 1918-19 Flu Pandemic, Depression, WW2, Holocaust, Cold War Nuclear Bomb threat hiding under our school desks for air raid drills....

In THE COURAGE TO BE, towering 20th century theologian Paul Tillich described three big fears across time: fear of death, stifling guilt, and meaninglessness of life...the last most prominent in the modern era. It’s been called existential anxiety...finiteness in awareness...an edginess that comes with the territory of living in human skin. So we are not making this anxiety thing up, as it custom fits into each of our lives.

Authentic faith, courage, even a bit joy for living and dying are more gift than achievement from the mysterious God we encounter in Jesus. This is seldom a happy-sappy deal. Jacob wrestling with the angel through the night is an apt model for us. (Genesis 32.22-32) Amazing gracefully, on occasion, the “I am convinced that nothing in life or death can separate us from God’s love” assurance grasps us. (Romans 8.37-39) But along the way, the anxiety shows up.

Though perhaps philosophically profound at some level, living with anxiety is navigated in the one-foot-in-front-of-the- otherness of our lives. Here is a partial, uneven list that works for me...most of the time.

+ It helps to recognize the anxiety ball has come and gone before.

+ Humor helps. Find the old Mel Brooks film “High Anxiety.”

+ Breathing deep and well reduces fear and releases courage.

+ Verbalize what’s bothering you with someone; at least list it.

+ Caring acts & gifts for others uplifts mood and courage.

+ The man was right about paying attention to birds and flowers.

+ Pets are channels of grace. That includes grand dogs.

+ Discover the real people like us peaking out at us in the Bible.

+ Prayer helps. Just being quiet and paying attention is prayer, too. Some call it contemplative prayer

+ 5 am coffee and a Kind bar are a body and soul boost for me.

+ Without denying the hard stuff, do a daily gratitude list.

+ Doing time with the wonderful, exasperating people of our lives is top or close to it of the list.

+ Good exercise, food, rest help our embodied spirits-enspirited bodies.

+ Worship helps - words, music, faces – pews and views!

Fear/anxiety can be something we have without having us.

Not being in control doesn’t mean we have to be out of control.

So, we are seldom totally fear free...never crazy about dying. But take heart. We are in this thing together. If we have it, we might as well learn something from the gift of anxiety for lives worth living and dying for.

Thanks to the great Heart of the Universe we know in Jesus for the joy, love, and hope that show up and on occasion drop kick anxiety in the weeds for a while. Maybe someday, forever...