I am an overthinker. Perhaps you can relate. Every moment of every day I find myself in a battle of wits, (or is it witlessness?). The battle is “to think or not to think, that is the question”.
I am also a seeker. And like many people, I have spent a life time, seeking answers to questions big and small. I have found many good and helpful teachers along a blessedly long life-line and I have used their teachings, I hope, to change and grow and better myself, because I believe at the heart of every true teacher, religion, spiritual-consciousness, philosophy, and science is the quest to be the best one can be in this life and perhaps even in some life-beyond. And so, some of us, like I, seek and we find. And then, we doubt. And the doubt for some, like I, takes the form of overthinking. Over thinking the past, which is no more; overthinking the future which is not yet; overthinking other people, both significant and rather insignificant to the reality of my reality right now; and beyond all overthinking, is the overthinking of self.
And I think, (although I may be overthinking this), that what I have realized today in a tiny little section of my overthoughtful brain, is that what I need to do, is go back to the very childlike idea that the happiest moments of thinking are when one is asking questions.
As adults, we sort of stop asking questions, maybe because we are still carrying the hurt of questions that have or had answers that hurt; questions that had answers that were rejections, or made us angry or fearful; questions that often lead to a feeling of powerlessness or depression or despair. And so, we begin to fear questions, of ourselves and questions of others, because we fear the answers or we fear we don’t know the answers, or we want to insist that everyone answer our questions in the same way we do (this last one is especially a problem of our supposed answers to questions in our religions and politics, both of which are temporal and always have been incredibly flawed in any one’s idea of logic.) And yet, being adult gets to be all about knowing answers to things. Rather sad, when you think about it, isn’t it? and there we go again — we think about the answer-less-ness of life so much and it pretty much makes us miserable or numb or facile.
But imagine for a moment, you are a child of about three or four. And imagine that instead of being surrounded by adults who get tired of your endless questions of “how?” or “why?” or “when?”; that you are surrounded by a host of imaginary playmates and other questioning children, all content and happy to live in the questions. And so, as this little child, you are living each moment with curiosity and exploration and awe and wonder. Imagine the freedom. Imagine the joy. Imagine you as someone who needs to know or think about very little at all right now, except what you are doing in this very moment.
And so, this morning, I began with a few little toddling steps. (I am after all not yet old and wise enough to be a three- or four-year-old. I am crawling.) I stopped what I was thinking about (that thing that might happen tomorrow, and that thing that she said yesterday, and that scary thing that might happen to me, and that hurt that I refuse to scab over…) and I stopped myself, and I asked myself:
1. What do you see? (Answer: the interesting pattern of my right sock.)
2. What do you hear? (Answer: a moth flying repeatedly into and bashing against the window, trying to go forward. (Stop overthinking the metaphor in that, Ms. Jane, you are three.)
3. What do you taste? (Answer: milky sweet coffee and a ceramic cup-lip against my lips)
4. What do you smell? (Answer: not much, my nose is a little allergy-stuffy)
5. What do you feel? (Answer: cold hands, rub them against each other, better.)
And life was very, very pleasant just to be. I was aware. And my awareness came from asking questions, and answering them. My mind became childlike and it was very, very good. I liked myself. I wasn’t worried. I liked my life. I enjoyed just being alive.
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When thoughts force their way in to the sanctuary that should be my mind, heart, soul and will (I happen to believe they are all inter-related); and when I can’t stop thinking about immediately irrelevant things, or things I have already answered about what I need to do, or want to do, or why I did do; when any thoughts come crowding in like parasites, hoping to feed off of the only sustaining food I have right now (this moment); when they do, I have started saying this simple prayer, “Create in me a new (child-like) mind/heart, Oh, God.” Create. Inside me. New. Heart. God.
I have also written down a list of questions to ask my over-Thinking Brain:
1. Is there anything you can do about this right now, in this very minute? (If so, do it. If not, stop thinking about it. (Example: Are you so worried about that pain, you should google its possible cause? If not, breathe in and out and stop worrying.)
2. Is there any action you can take about this situation right now? (Example: Do you need to text someone to ask forgiveness? Something I have done. Or Do you need to call your manager right now on a Sunday and tell her your thoughts? Something I would not do, so I should stop thinking about what I am going to say to her tomorrow on Monday.)
3. Is there any one you need to communicate with right now about your feelings? (This involves understanding how I think about my feelings and my relationships. This is a llloooonnngggg discussion for the experts, but in short-hand, I must ask myself: Is this feeling anything any one, other than I, myself, can and should do something about? Is this feeling something that I should act on, or do I need to analyze it more, live with it more even if it is painful, and try to find out why I am feeling it? Is this feeling true-True? And if so, who needs to help me with it or share it with me?)
4. Are these feelings productive right now? (And I mean right now. If so, just feel them. Even something that hurts can be very productive. Just like in the body, in the emotions, a pain leads to an awareness leads to a diagnosis leads to a choice leads to an action or inaction leads to a resolution. Don’t think about anything, just feel. Hard in our Western, worshipping-of -one -kind -of -logic kind of world, but again — be a child. Feel and in feeling, find a new emotional intelligence and a wisdom that may be quite a surprise.)
5. What can I create with the feelings I have right now? (And negative feelings can create insight into new directions, while positive feelings can create a whole new way of knowing what it is to be, and to be content, and to be content with being content, and to know that I don’t have to think anything at all to be of value, and to be worthy, and to be enough. This moment, and myself, are enough.)
6. And finally, what would I prefer to be thinking about right now? What can I think about that is happening right now that will make me feel the way I want to feel, right now, and the way I deserve to feel about myself, and others, and the world. Right now.
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We have relegated feelings to back burners of thinking, rather than letting them be the matches that light the flame of our creativity in living in this moment. We have given feelings a poor second-place to what we call “logic” and in doing so, our logic has become inflamed with the pus of our overthinking everything that should be excised with the precision of the soul’s surgeon-like release of all that would infect our joy in living.
We have excused our negativity by claiming we need to think about something in order to understand. And we refuse to accept, that most of everything that makes us uniquely human, is in some small or huge way, impossible for us to ever completely understand. Knowledge, to be true, is always flowing forward, and we can never step in the same part of Truth twice. We are, as the sage said, not nearly as afraid of death (absolutely unknowable), as we are afraid of living (over-rated as knowable, and not accepted as wondrously full of mystery and momentary awe).
“Create in me, Dear Self, Oh, God, this moment, a new heart.” This is the only progress, and it is a progression of what seems for a while like regression. As the wisest of the wise said, “you must become as a little child to enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. And the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing more that choosing to live fully, freely, joyfully in the here and now, as all heavenly creations choose to do.
To live fully and freely and faithfully and lovingly and joyfully, is to be “reborn” in each moment. I awake to true life, when I wake to a new moment –“Aha! I was just born. What a discovery! I am alive! How fun! Let me explore. Let me create.”
Sweep out the dust and trash and overflowing “stuff” in the house of your mind. Allow space for moments that are eternal only because they are completely new. New wine will not tolerate an old wineskin, as the wise sage also reminded us, and so, imbibe and drink deeply in this very new wine of this very new minute.
Look. Listen. Smell. Feel. Touch. Taste, eat; for it is all to nourish the very you that is uniquely you.
Stop thinking and question. Let go of all that has no purpose in moving you along the narrow path of this very and only guaranteed moment of time. Do not fear, for your very own holy spirit waits to play with you, as all children of God love play. You were created to create. So, all you need to ask yourself is this:
What do I feel like making and creating in myself and my little corner of this world, right now?
Oh, this feels good, and I created this; and it is very good.
Every once in a while I simply can’t wait around for humor to find me. I have to manufacture some myself. Otherwise it is all just too much, isn’t it? Below is my latest poetic ditty in an attempt to tickle my own funny bone.
I wrote this little silly poem on my half hour lunch break yesterday at my latest temporary gig in an office. I have developed a new empathy for people who spend their lives at mind-numbingly boring, dull, unfulfilling jobs because they like to eat, have a roof, and clothe their children, all by slaving for one measly, inadequate paycheck at a time. Yesterday, the cat (boss) was away, and the “mice” began to play a bit, while still accomplishing the work they do day after day after day after day, work that has no personal fulfillment for themselves, only for other people. A small group of those who sit in the completely silent large, sterile room, like computer chained prisoners, began to come alive. I sat at my separate temp-worker desk (temp workers are both temporary saviors and pariahs), and I listened in wonderment to people I thought I understood after two weeks on the job. I was secretly and joyfully astounded, and felt much like Geppetto must have felt when wooden puppets became a real boys and girls. The otherwise surly or silent began to share little jokes and stories with each other. They laughed, they teased, and the otherwise meaningless, joyless, slavish work suddenly had a new meaning, because for a small moment, they had other real, live happy, caring people who were working alongside them.
I encourage you to find something today, if you can, that tickles you to smile, giggle and when possible laugh loud and long. If you are a little worker-bee today, find a fellow worker-bee, and share a moment – show them a picture of your silly kid, memorize a new joke, laugh at what you brought for your lunch today. If you are a person with power, like a CEO, or manager, or teacher, or parent, I know you fear the happiness and silliness and joy of those you oversee. I know you think it will make them work less, focus less, accomplish less. All I can tell you, is, it won’t, but to believe that, you may need to learn how to do the most freeing thing of all. You may need to learn to laugh, and if you can laugh at yourself, then others will not be so tempted to laugh at you behind your back. You may find you are laughing and enjoying your day along with all the rest of us.
Ode to Joy, Not by Beethoven
By Jane Tawel
A recent need to be silly,
Due to having the world-weary willies,
About what I fear
In the world far and near,
Made me get out my pen and smirk, “Really?
Oh, you silly, Jane,
You are sometimes so vain,
And you really should not gild your lily!”
But due to my sense of great sadness,
Which often leads daily to madness,
I relate, some, to you,
And the trials you go through,
As we struggle through goodness and badness.
So, let’s giggle and wiggle our shoe-clad, sore toes-es,
Yesterday was my religion’s High Holy Day and what for years we called Easter but now some of us call Resurrection Sunday. On our front porch up in the ceiling on a hook that used to hold a porch swing but now doesn’t, a humming bird has made a nest. When my tall, handsome “I’m a man, Mom” son first saw the grey sack hanging there with something swarming around it, his Dad said he got scared and freaked out. Maybe he was thinking it was a bee’s nest or something. I was at work, so they had to show me the nest when I got home that day. Two days ago the bird was sitting still as a statue on the grey sack. If you have ever seen a humming bird can you imagine how hard it must be for momma bird to sit still? I thought – I know that look, you are getting ready to birth those little waiting lifes, aren’t you little momma? I don’t know how many bambinos humming birds birth or how long the gestation period is or what they look like when born, but I knew the determined expectant, fearful, hopeful look of that mamma’s every fiber.
This morning at 6:20 I went out to check on the nest. Momma is not there. I looked up all around the nest and didn’t see any tear -aways or holes so I’m hoping mamma bird just went out for breakfast. I hope nothing is amiss. I hope every thing is all right.
My children used to think humming birds were called “honey birds”. My four children were so adorable. I have said it before and I will say it again, I think Heaven might include a lot of do-overs – I get to do all the good parts over and over again. And then again.
I have discovered that many of my Western World Peers do not do anticipation very well. All of those great Anticipatory Church Holidays, like Advent, Lent, Good Friday – a lot of people don’t even know what they really are or mean any more and if they do, they really want to skip to the punch. Sort of like people I guess now do designer on -demand cesarean section births – I’m ready, so let’s get this over with and get to the baby part. Christianity has gotten to be where every one just wants to sing one praise chorus of “Just As I Am” and skip to the designer good baby part. New birth fast. Hallelujahs on demand, Tivo-ed every day. My husband and I see our son fighting the need to wait on things as he rushes to grow up. It is natural and it is also natural for parents who love him, so say, “Son, some things you need to wait on.” Because we all make mistakes when we get tired of waiting.
I wonder if Mama Honeybird got tired of waiting? I hope not. I hope she just went out for breakfast.
Can you imagine if God got tired of waiting?
One way the bible can be read is of a long, long story about centuries of people who get tired of waiting and the God who never does.
I think The Church is getting tired of waiting. Like Adam and Eve did. Like the Hebrew children in the Exodus did. Like Judas did.
And I think we daily want to skip right to the joy of Easter via the caesarian section of cheap born again life. We don’t know how important it is for that life to be born of cross carrying gestation. We want to skip Good Friday and all that it means about our sinfulness, our weightiness, our infirmities, which only Christ could carry to term at the cross. We want to shout “He is risen” on Thursday, Friday and Saturday – and so we miss what the anticipation of “Sunday’s Comin’” could mean in our lives, in the world, in Eternity. Because if we aren’t carrying our cross to term, then we can’t really love others and we certainly can not know, worship and love a holy God who wants to carry us to term into a new, re-created, perfect eternal life forever. Jesus doesn’t offer to birth us free from pain and mess, but He births us in and by the bloody placenta of the Cross. God banished Adam and Eve from a perfect world with many offerings of His grace, and the extreme pain of giving birth was one of those graces. Because without understanding that because of fallenness and sin, we must with some amount of pain birth all human creation — children, art, clean dishes, fields of fruit, microchips, vaccines, novels–birth with sweat, and toil and pain– if we didn’t have that pain, then we wouldn’t need a Savior and we would forever give up the anticipatory hope of a new creation in us and in the whole world. The very, very best part of Resurrection Sunday, is that Jesus willingly had to die to get to it.
If I am not dying to something in myself, daily, making every day a Friday, then I will never know the glory of being resurrected into new life on Sunday. “I am crucified with Christ”…. Wait for it, wait for it, wait for it…….
“NEVER THELESS I LIVE!”
Jesus did not skip the cross to get to the glory. And neither can I. But He carried the Lion’s share for me, for us. Christ had no idea what the end of the suffering would bring, there was no “spiritual heaven-sent sonogram” to predict the ending. But He knew the Father and He knew that He had to carry the kingdom to the end of it’s gestation period, no matter how agonizingly horrible and painful and lonely it was. He saw the pregnancy through to the bitter end, and birthed a whole new world, a whole new creation on Resurrection Sunday. And just like I long to do with my little birthed biological children, He longs to daily offer us do-overs – He is walking along, holding our hands, carrying the heaviest parts of our crosses, warning us to be careful crossing the street, laughing and holding and snuggling, and disciplining and admonishing and guiding and investing in our futures. If we rush to grow up, we will make mistakes. If we trust in our Father,and let His Son guide us, live in us, we will have eternal life.
And that is why we anticipate The Christ’s coming once more in the flesh, in person to reign in the world forever. Because that Resurrection Sunday, when Christ’s children are eternally resurrected to live with Him. That Sunday will mean the end of all anticipation – all pain, all sin, all sorrow, and all death. That Resurrection Sunday is what we are preparing for. That is the end of Good Fridays. That means Hallelujahs every day. He is risen. Indeed. Easter Morning my husband made this English nerd’s day by coming up with synonyms of the “indeed” part of that liturgical phrase. He played around with, “He is risen also.” Nope. “He is risen in fact.” Okay. And then he hit on it. “He is risen, Kapow!”. And so we joyfully throughout the day, would proclaim, “Christ is risen! He is risen KAPOW!” It was after all, a very Kapow thing for God to do.
I was hoping to see Honeybird give birth. But all I saw was her waiting vigil, her anticipatory expectation. That is my world, sitting vigil on a planet of people groaning in expectation of something better, something cleaner, something more loving, and more just, and more true. A world groaning to be born again. We, Christ’s church, Christ’s body, are called to wait vigil for Christ’s return and to midwife the new birth for the whole world that He died for. However you are called to do that today, know that as Paul discovered when he turned his whole world upside down for Jesus and helped midwife Christianity in the process, know as you go about your life today, as Paul says in Romans 8: 18, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
Just like in the agony of childbirth I could never have imagined how wonderful it would be, to be the mom of such four wonder-full children, so too, do we see only vaguely how wonder-full the world will be when it is fully gestated and brought to new birth, new creation when Christ comes again to reign forever. The paradox remains that as we strive to give the world new birth, Jesus longs to be born in us. That is the glory in us He died to reveal. That is what our present sufferings mean if we live into His Story, waiting patiently for all Christ’s birth, death and resurrection mean in our lives and in the world. “But you beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” (Jude 1:21)
Come, Lord Jesus. We wait and hope.
God is still waiting – with the anticipation and joy of a loving, doting father to celebrate for eternity –our birth. YHWH is the suffering God, who through His Suffering Servant Jesus, and His death and resurrection, offered each of us Life – real life, abundant life, not just 15 minutes but an eternity of all we now merely dream could be real life. This world of pain will seem like some weird Reality Show compared to our real life in Christ’s kingdom, and our souls will realize that life outside the womb of these present sufferings, is all life was always meant to be, a wonder-full reality of relationship with our Creator and Lord, an eternity of walking hand in hand in the Garden with the Father and His Son, our Savior, Jesus the Messiah.
Like my son, once you know the reality, then faith keeps you from freaking out. Like the Honeybird, once you take up the task of painfully gestating God’s love in you and in the world, you can live daily with anticipatory hope in the Pregnant Pause of Christ’s Kingdom. He is Risen. Kapow!
Because it never gets old:
“Hope is the Thing with Feathers” By Emily Dickinson
Jane Tawel 