The Crack in Everything 2 comments

By Lindsey Crittenden

Anxiety has found me again. It started as mild butterflies, as though I had an upcoming final exam or performance. I didn’t.

Or did I?

Isn’t living a performance? Showing up—with integrity and focus—can feel like performance, not in the sense of putting on a role or pretending but in the sense of giving of ourselves. Being in the world—even if it’s going through an all-too-ordinary day—can call from us as much as a final exam.

As the reading from last night’s candlelight mass reminds us, be “on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly.... Be alert at all times...to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34, 36).

On guard. Alert. My shoulders tense up just reading the words. And yet I don’t think what’s called for is guardedness in the sense of an armed sentry at the door. That’s the posture of anxiety, not necessarily of readiness. Anxiety feels like such an unwelcome intrusion, such a pushy uninvited guest.

When, a few years ago during a debilitating bout, a medical professional I trusted suggested that I try accepting the anxiety and not pushing it away, I thought she was crazy. But I began to do what she suggested, and I found it softened my stance, made me a little less vigilant. So what if the anxiety comes in? Maybe it’s trying to tell me something.

Easier said than done, I know. I’m awake now, dressed and caffeinated and showered and in the chair. I’m not in bed willing the daylight away.

A year or so ago, someone else I trust—a spiritual director—suggested that I make a list of things for which I am grateful. At the time, I wasn’t feeling anxious, just struggling a bit to feel and trust in God’s complete love. I got it, in my mind, but I couldn’t always absorb it in my heart. I thought something was wrong with me.

No, he said, smiling gently. But you might try writing down what you’re thankful for.

I nodded, but I didn’t do it.

Why not? I’m not sure. I think the reason had something to do with my notion that I already knew what I was grateful for, that I made enough lists, that I wanted more directive guidance from prayer. But I also—and this is a little embarrassing to admit—felt that it was hokey, too easy, spirituality lite.

The more I thought about it, the more I began to wonder if I had a problem with gratitude. I was raised to write thank-you notes within 24 hours, and friends often remind me of my thoughtfulness. But gratitude goes deeper than politeness. And gratitude was what sometimes tripped me up in my darker moments. When I first read Psalm 13, my heart leapt. “How long, O LORD / How long will you hide your face from me?”

Exactly! And then, a few verses later:

“I put my trust in your mercy / I will sing to the LORD, for he has dealt with me richly / I will praise the Name of the Lord most high.”

Huh? How’d the psalmist get from “how long” to “trust in your mercy,” from inward looking despair to outward praising thanksgiving. Gratitude couldn’t be forced; it couldn’t be faked. You either felt it or you didn’t.

Perhaps you can see where this is going. Perhaps you can see what I couldn’t—that his suggestion invited a way of being alert.

So after he sent me a You Tube link to a short video called “Celebrate What’s Right in the World,” I got the point. That night, I made a list, and every morning since I’ve added to it. The items cover those things and people that I’d considered so obvious not to need noting—my friends, my nephew, my cousin, my teaching, my home, food in my pantry, sufficient funds in the bank. But I started writing down smaller moments and observations: the slant of light through the clouds as a storm pushed west; the rain; riding the bus and looking out the window; a stranger’s smile.

The other day, I cleaned out my website in-box. Memory was full. I couldn’t just delete, of course. I read through 314 messages, mostly from strangers or long-lost friends who’d come across my book or an article I’d written and wanted to let me know. Some emails were long and wordy confessions from people I’d never met, telling about their struggles with addiction or depression. Some simply wrote “Thank you.” Others told me my book had helped them with its honesty. One offered his Rolfing services. Another asked me out.

One woman named Mariah wrote, “May God bless you and may you never forget how loved you are and how special you are.” That’s exactly what I forget in anxiety, and exactly why I wrote down her words. Not my own specialness but God’s redemptive love, available at all times and in all places. We reach out—and it meets us and holds us and pushes us into connection, communion, and, yes, sometimes anxiety.

But even then, we are fed. We find we are not alone.

I put up Mariah’s words on the bulletin board, next to a Leonard Cohen quote: “There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”