by Sr. Noeleen Mooney MMM     Ireland    12.04.2022

One of my favourite pieces from the Gospel is where Jesus tells us:

“Which of you can live a few more years by worrying about it?  If you can’t manage even such a small thing, why worry about other things?” (Luke 12.25-26)

The other things.  Yes.  So many times, we are anxious.  It seems part of our world and the pace at which we have to live.  Most of all, we are anxious about time.  We fret if the bus is late; if the traffic is slow; if the lights are against us.  We are anxious not to be late; we need to clock in on the dot.  Once we arrive, we can forget about it until it is time to go home.  Then it begins all over again.  We are anxious to beat the rush hour traffic, anxious to get home, anxious to forget – until tomorrow, all that goes with belonging, more or less, to the rat race.

Someone once gave me a poster on which were written the words:

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”

I know now why I needed to have those words stare at me, poster-size!

I often wonder what happens to the time we think we save by being anxious and moving at a fast speed.  Are we able to use it to grow?  To learn more about God, ourselves or our world?  Can we manage to forget about being anxious and draw on the memory of things that have happened to us, which inspire us, and which can still do so if we give them thinking space. Perhaps it is true to say that there is so little we can do to the beautiful except look at it.  But we can also remember; and surely, being able to recall and reflect is one of God’s greatest gifts to us.  Being able to rise above ourselves is one of the best ways of forgetting to be anxious.  After all, if Jesus tells us we are worth more than many sparrows, why be anxious”!