The Darkness I Fear You'll Send

 

Nuke Oatmeal for cholesterol, fresh ground coffee, that’s my morning,
Hot shower, clean water, scented shampoo.
Read verses from my monogrammed-leather-bound bible,
Fed-ex drops a box on my doorstep,
Like the shoe I fear will drop,
The darkness I fear You’ll send.

Tension mounting in my shoulders, ever-present, this foreboding,
Storm brewing, rain coming, bad moon rising.
Hear the Ted talks speak to the wounds of childhood trauma,
Children expect hugs in the darkness.
Locusts devour the crop,
The blessed season up-end.

Sirens blaring out my window, scrolling Meta, isn’t helping,

Barren well, deer panting, heart desiring.
See all of the boundaries fall in pleasant places,
Peace erupts from a different mindset,
May the anxiety stop,
As I trust You to defend.

Comfort Earns Its Recompense

The fear for me,

Is complacency,

Being cast into the fire.

Pharisees and scribes are told parables as a goad,

Let not the scattered seed get crushed upon the road.

There is a list,

We’d all agree,

Acts that bring God’s ire.

Violence to humans, derision and scorn,

Others say drinking, gambling and porn.

To make one free,

Takes eyes to see,

That I’m walking on a wire.

Middle road, comfortable, no active sword I wield,

Comfort earns its’ recompense a place in Potter’s Field.

Keyed up at three,

Quite anxiously,

The kiln in which I’m fired.

Scared to take the noble road, uneasy to lead or track,

To follow Him who lived for God, my sins upon His back.

The seed that’s sown,

Oft surreptitiously,

By men who work for hire.

Fertile soil, stretching out, resting in such grace,

Yielding fruit a hundred-fold, behold the Master’s face.

Photo by Vince Veras on Unsplash

The Knife and the Lilies

 A minute from here there’s a place where tree leaves are fiery freesia; cement sidewalk a blaze of yellow, calling into a canyon of color. I made a mental note last year to capture it on camera this Fall as I’d missed the narrow window first time around.  A simple supposition not quantified with a ‘Lord willing.’

It’s never good news when the neurologist calls you at home after the MRI. The nerves from the spine impinged on their way down like good seed falling among thorns. An urgent but planned surgery; not like a heart attack or cancer.

The therapy for the back surgery has been to walk. A blessing because it gets me out of the house and slows the spinning of my mind. First of course there were the ‘what ifs?” Post surgery now I’m anxious about recovery and return to normal life and work. Walking has been good. Glimpsing the last fall colors, taking in the neighborhood, praying about the lilies.

“Consider the lilies,” Jesus said. That’s the struggle. ‘Incurvatus en se,’ turned in on myself and minor concerns. Barely out from under the knife I worry about new burdens. Those tree leaves will burn yellow again next year. Come spring they will bud anew. Flowers will burst forth everywhere. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow.

Catgut Strings and the Music of Life

                                                          Photo by Jie Wang on Unsplash

The feel of the smooth, cold, black wood in the crook of my neck. The smell of pine; amber clear rosin encased in a block of wood. Fingers comfortably resting in the ‘frog’. White horse hair, the stick growing taut as screw increases tension. I lift the violin again, cheek in place, fingers on board, my back straight against the back of the wooden chair that every public school student is familiar with.

I played violin for seven years beginning in junior high. I was third string. This due largely to grace and that there weren’t enough violin players in orchestra. The principal violinist was a musician. He could arrange music in his head. Saying things like, “What if we played it half an octave down in the lower staff?” I was out of place. I played by rote. I learned where my fingers fit on the violin according to the stave. Half an hour every day after school I practiced. I learned to listen. I learned to play. Always by rote; mechanical.

Rimsky-Korsakovs’ Scheherazade, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition; Miss Craig had us play current and classical music. Each section playing its own part. For it to work everyone had to play well together. Erik the first violin, Nancy the second violin and I had to sound perfect together. So too the percussion section, the woodwinds, all of us together. I felt out of place. Til bow landed on string.

The instrument becomes part of you. Calloused fingers fit catgut strings. A position that once felt awkward now flows. The novice can make beautiful noise. The true maestro makes melody come alive. The instrument is part of you. You are part of the whole.

The violin case remains closed somewhere in storage. Tempted to pick it up again. Do I miss sculpted beauty held perfectly close? So much I don’t remember. Is it the oneness I miss? 

Daily life is all kind of hit and miss. I feel out of place. Most days I miss the mark. Anxiety climbs out of bed with me. Feeling like I cannot do it. Until that horsehair bow hits the string.

The Social Implications of Covid 19

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

You reached out to touch me, You reached out to touch me -

I said it's too true; You and me we know too much!---Mark Heard

Satan spoke to God about Job, “Touch all that he has; he will surely curse you to your face.” Did Satan have a similar conversation with God concerning Corona and the human race? We are faced with the same choice as Job; Curse God and die; or worship and bless Him. Corona is a curse in its social implications as well as its physiological ones.

I’m old school. I shake hands to greet; shake hands as thanks. No more. It’s a world where manners hardly matter and phones destroy interaction. Now we “socially distance.” Isn’t that what we’ve been doing all along? Now it’s sanctioned as safe. Avoidance good, community bad. 

For our "good" we are seeing the government ‘recommend’ business closures and small group assemblies. They even encourage the shutting down of brew-pubs and wineries noting that they are non-essential (at a time when they seem most essential!). The hand of government is strengthened to coerce. What next? What becomes illegal for our own ‘safety?’ Mandatory vaccines? Gun laws? Religious gatherings? How much power is to much power?

And always, the fear. Corona robs us of control. What can we control? We can stockpile stuff! Ahh, now we’re in control. Which brings us back to Job. If your kids die, your riches go and your health perishes; what’s left? God is left. “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, Blessed be the name of the Lord.” 

Let us not be those who cower at the whisper of Corona. As the world moves toward isolation we will move into community---cautiously optimistic. As we submit to authority let us move forward with consciences wise and wary. Finally give God your fear, “casting all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you.” I was sitting on catastrophe's knee, I was expecting Armageddon to come…You reach out to soothe me, you reach out to soothe me; you and me we know too much.

Swimming

We swim in an alien atmosphere. I remember early voyages. Passing through a white, steel gate; walking down a narrow corridor you smell it. Chlorine saturated water steams from wet cement. An adult beckons; parents push. The first step into clear blue water; foot feeling the tension as it breaks the surface, then the other.  Oh, the cold!

I’m not comfortable entering a pool.  My asthmatic lungs seize up with quick temperature change. I can barely breathe. I’m leaving the safety of air and firm footing. One step down; bathing suit gets wet and heavy. Two steps down then hold to the side, hold to the side! 

Grasping tight the pool’s edge over there is a pile of rectangles; like tops from Styrofoam ice-boxes. Bright colors; cherry red and cobalt blue with corners cut-off. For what purpose?

Inside the pool a line of children hold to the edge. An adult towers over us in a red bathing suit. “Pretend you’re in a big bathtub.  Face down and blow bubbles.” Easy. Each is given an ice-box cover. Trembling and terror, we leave the side. Grasping kick-boards we shove out across the shallow end a line of stick men without arms.

The new house has a pool. Neighbor girls hurl us into cold water. The sink-or-swim school. Dog paddles stave off drowning. Paddles turn to superior strokes. What was fearful now’s freedom.  Summer days spent swimming til cool water constricts blood vessels. We turn purple.

We swim in an alien atmosphere. The sink-or-swim school. Bright colors bid us leave the shallow end to the scary deep. Perhaps freedom awaits!

Some Tools To Battle Anxiety

Now when the attendant of the man of God had risen early and gone out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was circling the city. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?...Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” And the Lord opened the servant’s eyes and he saw; and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. 

Anxiety: apprehensive uneasiness or nervousness usually over an impending or anticipated ill. 18% of Americans suffer from anxiety disorders.  One out of every 5 people you know—and everybody that I know.  We all experience anxiety.  We experience it in different degrees with different reactions.  For some, panic attacks completely debilitate.  I want to turn and run. How do we deal with it? 

The issue is doubly troubling for a Christian.  We’re told (commanded, not encouraged), “Be anxious for nothing.”  We are not to fret, fear or be anxious.  If for no other reason than the one given by John Piper---our anxiety makes God look bad (a lack of trust in His consistent goodness towards us).

Problems at work have me afraid of being fired.  Of failing.  Of not performing well in other’s eyes.  I have friends walking through similar experiences. What am I learning?  How to best walk through this?

It’s a perception problem.  Perhaps the data isn’t being interpreted correctly. Like Elisha’s servant what I perceive as reality isn’t correct. I am reminded of the words of Jim Elliott, “Remember that the shadow a thing casts often far exceeds the size of the thing itself (especially if the light be low on the horizon) and though some future fear may strut brave darkness as you approach, the thing itself will be but a speck when seen from beyond. Oh, that He would restore us often with that 'aspect from beyond,' to see a thing as He sees it, to remember that He dealeth with us as with sons.” 

I see the problem but don’t allow for a solution. Years ago, in the midst of my divorce my car died on me.  I needed a car and had little money.  Enter anxiety. The local dealership had a used Saturn with manual transmission that nobody wanted to buy.  I ended up with a vehicle in better shape than the one I’d had.

The feeling isn’t the reality.  In overwhelming circumstances, we feel a gut- wrenching urge to puke.  We feel terror.  Simon Sinek tells how Olympic athletes when interviewed are always asked, “Were you nervous?”  Categorically they respond, “No.”  They all said, “No, I’m not nervous. I’m excited.”  Because they interpret the feelings typically identified as nervousness as excitement.  

Adjusting perception, trusting God for solutions and walking through the feelings are small actions to reduce anxiety.  Like most disciplines it’s a mental battle.  One I can fight today.  As Jesus said, “…Tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.” 

The Safety Of Fences

I grew up in a house without fence or hedge. At which my sister would yell, “But our house had a hedge all around it!” There were no immaterial hedges. For example as a teenager I had no curfew and only needed to call my mother and give her my location and estimated time of return to home. So it was that I had much confusion and anxiety in my youth.

Imagine my excitement years later to find out that God had provided a fence and guide for me. There were directions for what was best for me. There was a place to run when the world got too scary. There were boundaries which kept me protected. In midlife I continue to depend on this guide to hedge me in and keep me safe.

Midlife has no guarantee that terror will not press in. Some pressures are greater; one knows more people that have died. The ignorance of youth gives way to clarity---this is a two edged sword. Conviction in one’s decisions is easier. The list of those you know that have crashed and burned is longer. It is easy to imagine the worst.

I could have grown up with no safety net. Then the terrors of life would lead to angst and spiral into a death dive. Instead I find hope in the ‘light unto my feet and light unto my path.” I run to the one that calls the descendants of Abraham His friends encouraging them, “Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.”---Isaiah 41:10

“Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me…”---Psalm 16

A Little More Money

The story goes that when someone asked a rich man (Getty or Hearst or somebody I forget) how much money was enough the answer was, “Just a little more.”  Today I was reading Penelope Trunk and came across this quote,

“I used to think if I could just earn a little more money then I’d stop worrying about money. But no amount of money feels safe. And I know I’m not alone in this feeling. Daniel Gilbert shows, in his book Stumbling on Happiness, that we are hard-wired to not feel safe with the amount of money we have.” 

If the Rich Man worries about needing a little more, and a well known author worries about earnings, and the human race worries about money then it’s pandemic.  We need a cure.

Getting the right perspective on this money issue is a pervasive personal battle for me.  In my thirties I got into serious choking debt.  Every month I robbed Peter to pay Paul.  I took out low interest loans to pay down high interest loans.  I put off the payments I could to make payments I had to.  I’d go to bed but rather than sleep I’d stare at the ceiling and imagine worst-case scenarios.  The minute I woke up in the morning fear and anxiety would rush in.  I felt like throwing up or sleeping in.  Day after day I lived like this.  I never want to go back there.  When I see money in the bank dissappearing and (imagined) bankruptcy looming on the horizon the old fears start tugging at my heart again. 

Here is Merriam-Websters’ definition of anxiety: 

an abnormal and overwhelming sense of apprehension and fear often marked by physiological signs (as sweating, tension, and increased pulse), by doubt concerning the reality and nature of the threat, and by self-doubt about one's capacity to cope with it. 

 When anxiety knocks on my door I have to go to Jesus for help.  Jesus knows financial struggle is killing the world and wresting away joy.  To the rich man, the blogger, the father, the single mom, the intelligent and the average He writes,

“…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…And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?  And why are you worried about clothing?  Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin…But seek first His kingdom and His rightousness, and all these things will be added to you.” 

This is the cure.  Oh for a vaccination to maintain right thinking.

Rows and Rows of Lockers

I’m not naked. On one side, a cement ramp rises at a fairly steep slant, the ramp is bordered by a handrail, a thick tube of solid steel. On the other side, rows and rows of lockers. Lockers of the type you see in high schools, or, movies about high schools. The wall of lockers extends, seemingly, forever in both directions. I race along the cement path, seeking to find my locker. I can’t find it. Or I do, and I’ve forgotten the combination. Why race to find my locker? I forgot about a test. A test I must take. To take the test though, I need to get something out of my locker.

I’m not naked, as I said before. Nakedness, the stereotype of bad dreams, would be a slight embarrassment, a minor inconvenience compared to the terror and angst this nightmare produces. I’ve had this particular nightmare, in various forms and in various degrees, going far back as the ramp and rows extend. If life puts me under significant stress, I expect the dream.

I’ve not had it yet this month though. I expect it in the midst of financial fear, a result of not selling a large piece of real estate, coupled with a bad economy, and a job that pays too little. It’s mom’s birthday month too, and I can’t pick up the phone and call her. Can’t call my sister either, she’s not talking to me. So, I expect the dream. Haven’t had it in a while though.

More concrete than the ramp that ascends along the row of lockers is my faith. A faith that’s grown in these last years, through divorce, and child-rearing, and friendships, and richness of life. Walking this path, I’m learning to “cast my anxieties on Him,” because He cares for me. I know that He whom allows the tests, gives me grace to come through the tests. If the dream comes, I shake it off, and press on.

Picture of Lego art by Nathan Sawaya, at Turtle Bay