anxiety and lilies

In the past I have read and offered to others for meditation the last nine chapters of the gospel of Matthew as salve for the anxious spirit.  I read it now and linger on the images of the birds of the air being fed and the lilies of the field being clothed without toiling.  This part of the biblical passage communitcates that toil does not bring food or clothing; God does.  It's this part of the passage that always takes me back to my teen years and the movie Lilies of the Field with Sidney Poitier.  It was one of my favorite movies. 

In the movie Poitier plays a drifter handyman who stops in a small town in the Arizona desert to get a drink of water from some poor German nuns.  The Mother Superior talks him into staying to fix their roof and then to built their chapel--all without any money.  What touched me in my youth and still moves me today is the relationships that develop between Homer Smith [Poitier] and the nuns, and between Homer and the Mexicans who help him make bricks for the chapel.  All of these characters in the story represent groups who have at one time or another been marginalized in our society.  And yet in these relationships they found the "food" and "clothing" and dignity that nourished life. 

If I get anxious over anything today as I look for employment it is that there will be nothing life-nourishing again.  It takes looking out my window several times a day searching for messages that can help quell my anxiety.  Today I see squirrels of different colors--brown, black, grey.  I think just maybe there is a need in the workplace for uniqueness and that maybe there can be a fit for each of us--a fit that gives us dignity in our work.

I've been reading about brain research and also a book by Edwin Friedman called   A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix.  There is agreement in all of this reading that anxiety is a function of the amygdala, also called the "reptilian" brain, that is the brain form that was developed early on in evolution and is still part of the human brain today.  Now humans have developed other parts of the brain which can function to control the automatic anxious reactions of  the amygdala and we often do control our actions by engaging our reasoning brain.  In this "age of the quick fix" I can get anxious while waiting for that right fit position [or any position?] to come along.  When it feels like all the power is in the potential employers' hands that can intensify the anxiety.  So I work at reminding myself of my uniqueness and gifts and the values I can add to any institution that is forturnate enough to hire me.  And it is work!  The good thing is that I have windows where I can watch squirrels in the winter, lilies in the summer and birds all year round. I take in the goodness of nature and it is salve for my soul. How do you deal with the anxieties of un/underemployment?  What helps you find dignity in this experience?

next blog: passions....