These two seem pretty sure everything’s gonna be all right.
I admit it. I’m a naturally anxious person. Or I used to be. I have an anxious mom, who probably looked worried and afraid the first moment she held me. She comes from a small town in New Mexico where pessimism is a form of social currency. For years, I thought life was all about finding ways to conjure up dread, and then manage it.
Boy, was I wrong.
I’m a devoted Unitarian Universalist, and you’ll find me talking about God on this blog, particularly on Thursdays. I know this probably rubs some of you the wrong way. I know this because during my anxiety years, I was an atheist. I also know it because I have at least two friends who knew me before I embraced my faith, and they like to roll their eyes and sigh like they think I’ve undergone a lobotomy. I get it. I understand what it means to not believe, and I know just how annoying believers are to those who “know better”. To those of you who find me silly or an unreliable narrator because of my spirituality, I suggest skipping this blog on Thursdays. I’m sorry if my open belief offends anyone or makes them uncomfortable. I only share it now because it has changed my life so drastically, in such positive ways, that I feel like not sharing it would be mean.
There’s a passage in The Bible that really hits home for me, as a person highly trained in the dark art of anxiety. It’s from Matthew 6:24-25. Let me share it with you.
Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life about more than food, and the body about more than clothing?
As does Buddhism, The Bible teaches us that the enemy of faith is anxiety. You can only embrace anxiety if you have rejected faith. To me, faith is the bold choice we humans can make to tell ourselves everything is going to be all right. If you believe The Secret, quantum mechanics and all the other stuff out there right now that tells us our thoughts manifest as reality, then you will understand why anxious people tend to be less successful than those who have faith.
Neuroscience tells us that babies who are raised with upbeat, smiling moms have an easier time of optimism and faith than the rest of us, because happy moms actually wire their babies’ brains differently by smiling calmly at them. For people like me, faith offers a new way to re-parent myself, a new authority figure I can look to and see smiling, rather than scowling, at me. So, on that note, I want to remind you of this simple fact: If you think it’s going to be okay, it will. It’s up to you to trust God/the universe to be there for you.
I like your honesty, willingness to be open, and spirituality is part of who we are. I’m also sure Cowboy has seen some things in the Night Sky that affirmed his understanding about “Greater Things (God)” then we could imagine.
Why do you feel the need to apologize for your faith? This country was founded by and on faith and it’s principals. Political correctness had become so much ‘the thing’ that now we apologize for the very core principles that made this great country possible. Those that don’t believe are the ones that should apologize! But things are so backwards now – those like you & I are the ones apologizing.
I doubt our founding fathers would even recognize this country now. They came here so they wouldn’t have to do just what we do now -apologize for our beliefs!
Wouldn’t it be nice if PC worked in reverse? Those without faith did the apologizing?
If we are ashamed of Jesus, He will be ashamed of us (Mark 8:38). Isn’t apologizinng for our faith the same as being ashamed of Our Lord?
But I think your point is more that faith and anxiety can’t and doesn’t exist in the same ‘place’. AGREED. Anxiety cannot exist in us if we have faith. Without faith, the future (according to Bible Prophecy) will be a time of very high anxiety!
Actually, we are a country founded on the separation of church and state…and freedom of belief. Six of the founding fathers were Unitarians, and Thomas Jefferson was a secular humanist.
For the true story and facts of our country, the founding fathers, and their beliefs, check out Wallbuilders.com – David Barton’s website. He has original copies of books, documents, etc. that tells about our real history that isn’t taught anymore. I’d be willing to guess that very few know just how deeply our Judeau Christian roots really are. And I went to school a decade or 2 before most of you. We weren’t taught it, and it’s certainly not taught now. Very interesting info/facts there that can be absolutely backed up.
“I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent.”
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
For the record, these are the principles of my faith: http://www.uua.org/beliefs/principles/
Funny, when asked once if I had the choice of two people, living or dead, I would like to sit down, have dinner with and talk with, my first choice was Jesus (God) and my second was T.J. (Thomas Jefferson). You are so right. At my stage in the game, I seldom have anxiety. I have found having faith lets us know that things will turn out as they should. Maybe not exactly as we want them to, but as they need to.