A Call For Non-Anxious Presence

 "And which of you, by worrying about your life, can add an hour to your lifetime?"  -- Luke 12:25

Though these words were said by Jesus a couple of millennia ago, they still ring true enough today, even though the nature of our stressors/anxieties is multiple times more ubiquitous than in the first century.  Being a non-anxious presence, or lowering the temperature of anxiety in a room or work situation, has become the topic of books and workshops for management and leaders.  Most of them highlight the value of reducing anxiety in tense situations.  The primary value is that everyone can think more clearly and assess alternative steps when reactivity is reduced. Pressure cookers aren't for solving problems; they're for canning your vegetables.  

Speaking of pressure cookers.  American civic society is falling into a pressure cooker with the kettle's temperature being increased substantially day by day.  (If you wish to stay in the bubble of news blackout you've built to avoid the news, you might want to quit reading here and try another of my posts.)  Charlie Kirk's untimely death solved nothing that his shooter may have been hoping to accomplish, unless the accomplishment was intended to inflame political passions and warring madness. America needs someone to call a time-out on the escalating rhetoric and retaliatory threatening stances being taken by the White House and Mr. Kirk's followers. They have obviously not read management materials about the debilitating effects stress and anxiety have on finding solutions going forward. 

My brief analysis of the escalating situation is, in a word, sin.  The sins of wrath, pride, and envy have hit a peak on this roller coaster ride and are very near the plummet down the other side, with uncertainty whether the car will stay on the tracks. Wrath is unrestrained anger without a rational goal.  Pride wounded stirs increasing actions to counter the perceived loss of face.  And envy is an unmatched craving for more of what you think others have (like the power other dictators have in other countries?) The danger in the over-reach of these sins in government is bad for everyone living here. 

The counter to these sins - barring a divine intervention of Biblical proportions- is to step inside the countering virtues: meekness, humility, and love. Living in pursuit of the virtues, because they hold a sacred life-giving quality, is the best route to finding the restorative power of non-anxious presence and healing.

Meekness is the power Jesus modeled to feel what he felt while remaining introspective, insightful, and discerning to act non-violently to address the problem.  Examples: the table-turning affair at the Temple, or the face-down of Pilate at his trial, or every time he went up against the Pharisees.

Humility is the ability to grasp, process, and gain insight into one's own internal emotional/spiritual/mental space and to quickly gain the cognitive upper hand to calm one's tendency to rush in "where angels fear to tread."  Humility helps us know of what we are capable, and what our limits are.

Love is having a firm grasp on "brotherly love."  We love because God first loved us -- loved me and thee. We hold tightly to the premise that all things and people have sacred worth, no matter how "smudged up" their behavior may be. 

I must be clear - nothing herein suggests that sin needs to be overlooked or excused.  Resistance is still permissible (even needed) when the sin is injuring or killing.  Consider Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and many others who have taken stands for justice throughout history. 

I am convinced that reclaiming the old teachings and power of the classic virtues practiced by the Church through the ages is our best way forward as individuals and as a country.  The fracture of "Christianity" where a large component of anti-Jesus, white supremacists, and Christo-nationalists have separated themselves down a dark path that raises the spectres of racism & misogyny and seeks the demise of immigration, diversity, equality, and inclusion. This is not in keeping with God's love.   The evil being visited on so many calls on each of us to remain non-anxiously enveloped in the Spirit, standing together with sure hope in Christ's Way being made straight and the soon-and-very soon victory of Love.