Why Worrying Doesn't Help

I am not generally a worrier, having been blessed by having been born without the "worry gene", which I've blogged about before. Nevertheless, it does get to me sometimes... I am due to have an operation on my left foot in early December to correct some deformity in my toes, which has been caused by arthritis. And I catch myself worrying about it every day. What if it goes wrong? What if the anaesthetic wears off befoe they've finished (to my horror, it's being done under a local anaesthetic rather than a general one. And yes, I understand that it will be better for me not to be knocked out, but urgh...) What if it doesn't make a good difference? What if I'm left off worse than before? What if I can't do things I can do now - like hill climbing etc? In short, a whole platoon of "what ifs" is haunting my mind, making me fretful. And I don't like it, not one little bit.

So it was good to read the wise advice of the Greek Stoic philosopher, Epictetus: "There is only one way to happiness, and that is to stop worrying about things that are beyond our control." [And I've just had a small moment of joy when I looked him up on Wikipedia: he was born in Hierapolis, Phrygia, which is now known at Pamukkale in Western Turkey. There is a World Heritage site there, an area of glorious travertine terraces which also features hot springs) and my husband and I visited them in 2013. They were astonishingly beautiful see below].

(image: Wikimedia Commons)

So, thanks to the nudge from Epictetus, I am going to try to stop worrying. It is making me miserable and will make no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the operation. 

In fact, there are very few outside events that are within our control as human beings. I believe that the only thing we are able to control is our reaction to our worries... we can allow them to take us over, removing all the joy from our lives, or we can choose to tell ourselves, "Nope, can't do anything about that. But I can let it go. I can choose to not let it get to me. I can choose to bring myself back to the present moment, the present pain, the present pleasure, and not lose myself in dark imaginings."

I appreciate that this is difficult advice for us to take, and may well be impossible for those who suffer from real anxiety, who may find it both irritating and laughable. If this is you, my reader, I apologise.

But I don't. So I'm going to try...

The Benefits of Seeing Life As It Is

 Sir Adolphus William Ward, an eminent historian and man of letters, once wrote, "The pessimist complains about the wind, the optimist hopes that it will turn, the realist hoists the sails."

Which is a clever aphorism to illustrate the differences between pessimists, optimists and realists. As regular readers of this blog will know, I am a born optimist, and proud of it. Yet Ward's words have made me wonder whether I am sometimes ridiculously naive - whether all optimists are.

Because all the hope in the world will not help any particular situation. Change for the better will only happen when our hope is translated into a firm plan to do something about whatever is bothering us. So the fierce practicality of the realist is perhaps something I should cultivate more. I can see that there is little point in being optimistic about the future, unless we are prepared to buckle down and do our bit to make it so. All the optimism in the world won't change that world. Only concrete actions can do that.

Yet I also believe that realists (who can often be quite pessimistic in their outlook, because they see things as they are, and there is so much to grieve about in the world today) might also take a leaf out of the optimists' book. The leaf of hope, the belief that something can be done. The belief that the world can change if we work at it hard enough.

A combination of optimism (so that we believe in the possibility of a better future) and realism (so that we are prepared channel that hope into action) is perhaps the best course to adopt. 

Off the Beaten Track

The German novelist and poet, Theodor Fontane, advises us, "But all the best, as everywhere in life, lies beyond the main road."

There are several different ways of interpreting this... Perhaps he means that it's important to remain curious during our lives, so that we poke our heads down proverbial rabbit holes, simply to see what's there. Even if that means sometimes wasting time, as the road leads to nowhere in particular.

Yet, I do wonder whether it is even possible to "waste time" when we are following our curiosity. Over the years I have had huge amounts of fun doing just that. And sometimes, being curious has led me to marvellous new experiences I would not have had otherwise... One example was in September 2014, when I was sent an e-mail by the London Centre for Spiritual Direction, asking me for a reference for a new student, who was a fellow Unitarian. I was inquisitive enough to click on the link about the course, which led to a deep and wonderful three years training to become a spiritual director. 

Curiosity about new ideas, thoughts and experiences is a very Unitarian thing, or so I have found. Many of us came to Unitarianism because we heard or read something about it, and decided to find out more. And, once we are in, there are many opportunities for "going off-piste", so to speak, by following our curiosity wherever it leads on our spiritual journey. Which is not uniquely Unitarian, of course, but we see it as a virtue, rather than a hindrance. We tend to enjoy exploring little known byways.

In Matthew's Gospel, we read, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the road is wide and easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it." Which may, perhaps, have been interpreted to mean that the Christian has to follow the authorised path of faith laid down in the Bible, rather than being distracted by the world around them. The problem with that, for me, is that the Bible contains so much contradictory advice. I would rather use my own reason and conscience was my authority. They haven't led me "to destruction" so far, and I don't believe they ever will (or even could).

Or perhaps he is warning us not to become so fixated on our immediate goals that we are blind to all else that is moving in our lives. This is something I have had to learn the hard way. When I am focused on a task, my attention on it is laser-sharp. It often takes a nudge from a friend (or from my guardian angel) to lift my head up and look around me, to see what is going on "beyond the main road." Which may be just as important.

So yes, let us follow our noses and see where our curiosity may lead us...

Running After Happiness

 According to Wikipedia, Adolph Kolping, who lived during the first half of the 19th century, "was a German Catholic priest and the founder of the Kolping Association. He led the movement for providing and promoting social support for workers in industrialised cities while also working to promote the dignities of workers in accordance with the social magisterium of the faith."

He once wrote, "Some people run after happiness and don't know they have it at home." I agree with him, up to a point. It can be very tempting sometimes, or even often, to get trapped in an endless cycle of "if onlys". "If only I had / was / could..." We get seduced into thinking that if only X, Y, or Z would change, our lives would be complete, and finally, finally, we could be happy.

And yes, I agree, that when our lives at any particular moment seem (or are) filled with problems and challenges, it is far more difficult to appreciate the actual minute by minute slices of happiness that may come our way. And for me, there is one outstanding example of this in action:

There is an old story, which was for long years considered to be apocryphal, about how a small group of rabbis in Auschwitz put God on trial, and found him guilty. In 2008, the Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel told an audience at a Holocaust Educational Trust appeal dinner in London, "I was there when God was put on trial." Which caused quite a stir among Jewish rabbis and academics.

It was reported in The Jewish Chronicle, who interviewed  Wiesel the following week. He said, "Why should they know what happened? I was the only one there. It happened at night; there were just three people. At the end of the tiral, they used the word 'chayav', rather than 'guilty'. It means, 'He owes us something. Then we went to pray."

At the end of its report, The Jewish Chronicle concluded, "The story is the subject of a famous midrash, or biblical commentary. Many people have assumed that the story was a way for those of faith to try to make sense of the Holocaust."

It is the final line of Elie Wiesel's testimony that touches my heart. "Then we went to pray." In spite of the horrific conditions in Auschwitz, in spite of the fact that they had just found God 'chayav' of neglecting them, "we went to pray."

Their faith was too important to them to dismiss it. So they grasped the moment of happiness they could find in that moment, which is what the Kolping quote is about, and went to pray.

I believe that even in the hardest situations, there is always a sliver of happiness to be found, if we are awake enough and aware enough to see it. And that running after future happiness simply doesn't work - all it does is to make us ignore what is happening in the present moment. Which I believe is the only instant when time touches eternity, when the Divine makes itself known to us.

 

The Ingredients of Happiness

 According to the 19th century German Romantic writer, Clemens Brentano, "Happiness is a silent hour, a good book, fun in happy company, and a friendly visit." Google's translation loses the rhythm and rhyme of the original, but that it is the rough meaning....

's 

I am writing this in on holiday in Vienna, where the second, third and fourth ingredients are present in abundance... We have been blessed with gorgeous sunny weather so far, and have been sightseeing and visiting famous Viennese landmarks. 

Yesterday morning I fulfilled the ambition of a lifetime, when we spent an hour at the Spanish Riding School, watching the Lipizzaner stallions being taken through their paces - only a training session, because the cost of a performance is prohibitive - which I have longed to do ever since reading Mary Stewart's Airs Above the Ground as a teenager. Even the training was amazing to watch, because the riders scarcely move at all, yet the horses perform complicated movements, responding to invisible signals. We didn't see any "airs above the ground", but the training session did include the diagonal trot, pirouettes, and a fiery piaffe. Just gorgeous.

We have had coffee and cake in one of Vienna's most famous coffee houses, Demel's, and have found a nearby restaurant called the Esterhazy Keller, which also appears in the all the guidebooks. On the first evening, Maz ordered the Wienerschnitzel (made with pork, not veal) and was slightly disconcerted when *two* huge schnitzel appeared rather than one... 

It's a special holiday for us, as we will be celebrating our Ruby Wedding on Sunday... but in another way, it is like all the holidays we've ever taken - we wander around the city, taking in the sights, visitng what appeals to us, and generally appreciating the heck out of it. It's something we've done for the whole of our marriage, which has built up some very happy memories... 

I hope that wherever you are, you are able to enjoy a silent hour, a good book, have fun in good company and a friendly visit...

Moving Away from Home

 W. Somerset Maugham once wrote, "You should stay where you feel happy." Which is good advice as far as it goes, but not particularly susceptible to reality.

There are so many reasons why people cannot stay where they feel happy... they might be entering a new stage in their lives, which may be for a happy reason - for example, going up to university, moving to a new village or town or city (or even country). Or it may be for an unhappy reason... they might no longer be able to cope with living in their present home, or war may have passed over the place in which they live, or famine or a host of other disasters, both natural and manmade. Which are more difficult, more traumatic reasons to move.

And, because we are perhaps conservative by nature, it will take us a while to settle in to the new place, to make new friends, to come to feel that it is our home. Even if we have moved because we wanted to, the first few weeks or months may be very difficult and we will long to be back home among familiar places and faces. But eventually, if we persevere in "making the best of it", we will, more often than not, settle in to our new community and begin to feel at home there.

Of course, this will largely depend on the kind of welcome we get in the new place. Refugees are often not *allowed* to "make the best of it". Refugees in particular, often face downright hostility rather than any kind of welcome. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be to have to uproot yourself and your family because of necessity, rather than desire. The British-Somali poet, Warsan Shire, has written a beautiful, moving and poignant poem about this, called Home, which I urge you to read. The final lines read:

               " no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear

                saying - 

                leave,

                run away from me now

                i don't know what i've become

                but i know that anywhere

                is safer than here."

New Month New Year

 It's September and all over the country, children and young people will be going back to school and college, or starting a new stage in their education. The British (non-) Summer is over and it's time to put away our holiday gear and buckle down to something new.

Having worked in or around the education system (including the Unitarian education system with the Worship Studies Course) for donkey's years, I always get a new surge of energy at this time of year - it is so full of new possibilities.... Yesterday, I visited an exhibition about Lego models with my grandson and his mum, at Northampton Museum & Art Gallery, and he was full of excitement to be going up into Year 1.

I'm also excited on my own behalf - there are two new Worship Studies Course Foundation Step courses beginning this month - one for UK students, the other for students from Australia and New Zealand. And I've been asked to help facilitate the Australia / NZ one, which begins on Monday, at 8.00 am (which will be late evening for the students). It's a new venture for Unitarian College and I really hope it goes well. It fills me with hope for the future of our beloved "uncommon denomination", as more and more people are trained to fill lay leadership roles, either supporting our current ministers or on their own, in their home congregations. 

If you are one of the people beginning a new course (or just a new academic year) this month, I hope that it fulfils all your hopes and proves to be both interesting and worthwhile. Good Luck!