Spiritual Calm

This week let’s take a look at anxiety. Or put more positively, let’s focus on our sense of Calm.

First, some enemies of calm:

• Hurry
• Overextension
• Dwelling on our fears
• Giving in to our fears
• Disorganization
• Indecisiveness
• Procrastination
• Negativity
• Selfishness
• Fear of the future
• Inconsideration
• Unwillingness to say no
• Failure to plan
• Weariness
• Poor prioritization
• Weak self-discipline
• Insufficient self-confidence
• Too little prayer or meditation
• And perhaps most importantly, lack of trust in God

Does one of the listed challenges feel like an area where you need growth? Focus on improving in that one category. An improvement in any area of our lives will improve the other areas as well. But allowing anxiety in any area in our lives can affect our spiritual well-being.

Given that we profess to believe that:

God is all good,

God is all loving,

God is all powerful,

God wants what is best for me,

And true happiness comes from following His will,

Then why are we not spiritually calm?

There can be many reasons, but let’s look at four:

We know what God wants, but we don’t do it. Even St. Paul wrote, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do.” (Romans 7:15)

 Maybe we fail to do what we should because of:

1. Resistance to change
   1. We are satisfied, and comfortable with our current situation.
   2. We feel we’ve done enough and are good enough.
2. Fears, such as:
   1. What He has in store for us will be painful.
   2. Service will take time away from our families and their needs.
   3. We won’t be good enough at what God asks us to do.
   4. He might lead us to suffering, or even death like the martyrs.
3. Contrariness or choosing short-term over long-term gain
   1. I don’t want to.
   2. I don’t have time.
   3. Maybe tomorrow.
4. Wounds from the past
   1. Criticism, judgment, or belittling has left us with low self-confidence.
   2. Accusations from others of being a goody-goody, showing off, or seeming self-righteous.
   3. Continued focus on our weaknesses makes it hard to believe we can do what He asks.
   4. But there is another wound from the past… Someone who represented God, or who pretended to, hurt us and/or our family. In this case, imagine Jesus driving the money changers out of the temple. Or remember that Jesus was hardest on the Pharisees. I believe the few examples of Jesus’ anger show He wants His church leaders to be Good Shepherds to His people, protecting the lambs rather than wounding them. I am so sorry if you were hurt by the very people who should have shown you the most loving kindness. Please seek the healing you need to restore your spirit and know that, though we all are imperfect humans, this should not have happened to you.

With all the above reasons for not doing what we know we should, we must remind ourselves that our All-loving God wants what is best for us, and true happiness comes from following His will.

The second reason we might not be spiritually calm is we don’t know what God’s will is.

Sometimes we seek to choose between two options. If one (or both) was a bad thing, such as breaking a vow or intentionally hurting an innocent person, we’d know it wasn’t God’s will. No dilemma. But sometimes we are trying to discern which direction God wants us to go when both are good choices, such as which career to follow or whether to marry or consider a religious vocation as a single.

• There is no substitute for prayer at these times, and even fasting.
• Consulting other trusted individuals who are wise mentors or counselors is helpful for pointing out areas you might not have considered, but the choice must be yours.
• Sincerely ask yourself if you really do know, but don’t want to admit it because of fear.
• Imagine for a few days you’ve made choice A. How does it make you feel? Do the same with choice B. If one choice seems more attractive, might it be that God is leading you through that attraction?
• Would your strengths serve one choice better than the other? Might God have been preparing you for this choice by your life experiences, even the difficult ones?
• Take time away from your routine to be free to think and pray through the decision. Ask God to lead you, and to redirect you if you are not making the choice He wants.

A third possibility is we are overwhelmed with non-spiritual matters. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a day of sabbath rest to the Lord. (Exodus 35:2)

How balanced is your life? Have you set any boundaries that ensure time for spirituality, creativity, family closeness, and fun? We are doing ourselves no favors if we forget that God gave us one day each week to rest and refresh. On that day we should be enjoying our families, moving closer to Him through prayer or spiritual reading, and expressing our creative, fun side.

Fourth, perhaps we aren’t calm because our relationship with God is weak. How can we trust someone we don’t know?

Matthew Kelly writes about a very dependable way to deepen any relationship, be it with God, spouse, best friend, or children. He calls it, Carefree Timelessness. By this he means spending time without an agenda, simply to enjoy someone’s company. No matter what the relationship, increase carefree timelessness and it will deepen. Spend some carefree timelessness with God. Chat with Him. And listen. “When you feel the absolute calm has been broken, come away alone with Me until your heart sings, and all is strong and calm.” From the book God Calling, February 21 entry.

Let’s end this exploration of calm with a disclaimer. Don’t expect to remain spiritually calm, even when you obey God’s nudges. We will find joy from obedience, but in my experience, it won’t be long before God nudges us back out of our new comfort zone and encourages us toward more growth and more joy!

But even before you find yourself spiritually calm, perhaps you can be a calm eye-of-the-storm for someone else. Listen to them when they are in need. Don’t be surprised if find your own worries seem small by comparison, and you can gain perspective.

Necessary Losses

In her book, Necessary Losses, Judith Viorst discusses the “loves, illusions, dependencies, and impossible expectations that all of us have to give up in order to grow.” Our life, our growth could be seen as a progression of letting go.

She writes:

In the course of our life we leave and are left and let go of much that we love. Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of our growth and gain. Making our way from birth to death, we also have to make our way through the pain of giving up and giving up and giving up some portion of what we cherish.

We have to deal with our necessary losses.

We should understand how these losses are linked to our gains.

For in leaving the blurred-boundary bliss of mother-child oneness, we become a conscious, unique and separate self, exchanging the illusion of absolute shelter and absolute safety for the triumphant anxieties of standing alone.

And in bowing to the forbidden and the impossible, we become a moral, responsible, adult self, discovering—within the limitations imposed by necessity—our freedoms and choices.

And in giving up our impossible expectations, we become a lovingly connected self, renouncing ideal visions of perfect friendship, marriage, children, family life for the sweet imperfections of all-too-human relationships.

And in confronting the many losses that are brought by time and death, we become a mourning and adapting self, finding at every stage—until we draw our final breath—opportunities for creative transformations.

There is plenty we must give up in order to grow. For we cannot deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to loss. And we cannot become separate people, responsible people, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go.

Viorst lists times in our lives when we must let go, followed by what we will gain by doing so:

Childhood’s End – We give up a belief that we can be kept safe and receive instead the freedom and responsibility to make our own choices. We accept reality, and with it accept that we don’t get special treatment, absolute control, compensation for past loss, or perfect companions. We don’t blame our current lives on our childhood.

The Married State – We learn that no person can meet all our expectations all of the time, nor can some expectations ever be met. Our spouse can’t make us be happy, heal all our hurts from the past, or fill all our needs. Those unfulfilled expectations are necessary losses in order to truly love our less-than-perfect spouses.

Letting Children Go – In parenting we fear our imperfect love will harm our children, or we will fail to keep them safe. Facing our fallibility as parents is another of our necessary losses. We must let our children become steadily more independent and let go of them and our dreams for them. It is also through parenting that we accept that some things we wanted from our own parents we will never receive. We learn to give thanks for imperfect connections.

The Loss of Youth – Time will repeatedly force us to relinquish our self image and move on. We travel stages of our adulthood and must move out of times of stability into times of transition. We leave youth and health behind. We lose abilities and strengths. We let go of dreams as we realize we’ll never accomplish them all. Yet we gain experience, inner depth, acceptance of others, patience, and self-control. We move from body preoccupation to body transcendence. We move from identifying ourselves by what we do or who we parent to who we are. We can become an integrated whole, accepting our weaknesses along with our strengths.

The Loss of our Loved Ones – Mourning is the process of adapting to the losses in our lives. We travel through and revisit stages of numbness, denial, intense emotional pain, bargaining, anger, guilt, and idealizing whom or what we lost. But as we find our way through the mourning and learn to let go of our pain, we can come to acceptance.

Accepting our Mortality – By letting go of our pretense that we will live forever, we acknowledge the importance of the present. We live enriched lives, knowing that each day is vital. We make the most of the present to find a way to leave a legacy to the world for the future.

When we are children, we tend to strive to achieve the next level of growth. My granddaughter has just begun to walk and now her day is spent standing up and down, climbing up and down, daring herself to toddle farther, always strengthening newly controlled muscles and determined to achieve even more.

For some reason, as adults, we hold tighter to what we have achieved and need longer periods of stability before and if we progress again. Sometimes we would refuse to progress if the option were given to us. We know God wants us to become the best we can, which means continually growing, improving, and fighting our weaknesses. Yet, we fear the unknown, grow comfortable with the present, and hold tightly to what we treasure. (Wouldn’t it be better if, instead of collecting treasures, we shared ourselves?)

If we are blessed with a long life, we will face many necessary losses. We lose the constant companionship of our children as they grow up and move away. Even grandchildren will eventually be too old to nestle into grandma’s lap. Many of us will lose our spouses, as well as dear friends. We will adjust over and over to new health issues, grieving the loss of pain-free joints and sharp vision or hearing or thinking, while possibly relying on a cane or walker or wheelchair. We may downsize our house, letting go of sentimental attachment to things.

I watched my mother, who worked until she was 86, need to let go of so much in the course of a couple of years. She had to stop driving and soon after that, she moved from her own little house to our guest bedroom and gave up what treasures wouldn’t fit in our van. She left behind a lifetime of Montana friends and familiar places. When later she moved by train from my house to my brother’s home in California, she brought two large suitcases and left the rest behind. And yet, she did all this with grace. She doesn’t even complain now when Covid keeps her homebound, and she can no longer go to church in person.

Life will hurt us, but because of our wounds, we will stretch and grow and be more than we were. Perhaps this process of letting go, if done well, makes room for God.

Being alive means we will suffer loss. But the loss will open us to new possibilities. Jesus lost his life, but by doing so, regained for us the Kingdom of God. He rose to new life so that we will, too. In that life, there will be no loss.

Blessings on you and on your week!

Betty Arrigotti.

Gratitude Attitude & Grandma’s Platitudes

When I first began writing fiction, I was told I didn’t include enough conflict in my stories. As a mother of four, I spent much of my day trying to reduce conflict. Eventually I realized that people identify with a story when the protagonists, through the trouble that comes their way, learn to face their weaknesses and grow enough to overcome their darkest moments and (ta-da!) save the day.

Real life isn’t too different from stories in that respect. It is through our hard times that we develop character. We’d rather not suffer. We’d like to avoid all pain, for ourselves and our loved ones, but we wouldn’t learn and grow without challenges.

In most of my 4 Minutes emails I give information that professionals have researched and advised, but today, I am turning to another kind of expert. Our grandparents have lived through their share of difficult times, and we can learn from their hard-won wisdom. So, I’m falling back on some of Grandma’s platitudes.

As a child when I’d complain, (okay, when I’d whiiiiine) Grandma would remind me, “Be thankful for what you have!” What is the best (and perhaps hardest) thing to do when times are very difficult? Choose a gratitude attitude.

• I may not have as much money as I want, but thank you, God, that I have enough for today. (And enough that I can share with those who have less?)
• I may feel desperately lonely, but thank you, God, for loving me always. (And for all the people who have loved me.)
• I may not be as healthy as I was, but thank you, God, that I can breathe. (If I can do more, like see/hear/walk/move, I am blessed indeed).
• I may be confused about my future, but thank you, God, that I can think. (And pray and analyze and read and make decisions.)
• I may feel stressed to the point of breaking, but thank you, God, that you know and care and want me to rest in you.

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Grandma would also say, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” This is a little hard to take, especially when you’re the one in crisis and the person quoting it isn’t. Actually, at some point a crisis really might kill us, so this scarcely seems comforting. However, it is true that hard times force us to grow and become tougher than we were when times were easy.

I remember crying on my Grandma’s lap. As she rocked me, she would remind me, “This too shall pass.” Or she might quote one of her favorite prayers: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Reinhold Neibuhr (When she learned AA uses this prayer, she was mortified to think someone might suppose she learned it there.)

Along with working to change what we can, she’d say we must “Pray as though everything depends on God and work as though everything depends on you.” Grandma had total faith in God, as well as a work ethic that kept her from waiting for an answer without doing her part. God will help us. Sometimes, rather than taking away our pain, He will give us the inner resources we need to succeed despite the pain. Or He will send us help. Are we trying to get through this time all alone? Reaching out to others may be part of “working as if everything depended on us.” Allowing someone who is not in crisis to help can be a gift to them, for they receive the blessings and joy of service.

It is especially difficult to bring calm to a situation when someone is angry with you, particularly someone you care for deeply. My Grandma used to say, “When people are the hardest to love, is when they need love the most.” (I tried to tell myself this when my daughters were mid-temper tantrum.) My first reaction to someone being angry at me is to be angry in return. Of course, that doesn’t accomplish much. Rather than the very human response of defensiveness, or worse, going on the offense, take a deep breath, say a quick prayer for patience, and then remind yourself how much you love this person. Or if you aren’t feeling very loving at the moment, try to remind yourself how much God loves this person. 

Another way Grandma would counsel me to deal with critical people would be to say, “Consider the source.” She meant, is it really that important what they think? Does their life experience color their opinion? Are they the right people to rely on for judgment?

One thing we can count on—we will be given “opportunities for growth.” Life will be hard and sometimes all we can control is our reaction and our attitude. But therein lies our strength.

The final quote I leave with you is not from Grandma, but rather from God himself:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

Rest in God for 15 seconds. Close your eyes. Breathe in your thanks and breathe out your fears. Then either hug or say a prayer for your grandma!

Blessings on your week.

Betty Arrigotti

PS – Other posts about “Hard Times” can be found at www.BettyArrigotti.com. See the links in the column on the right edge of the home page.