Oh Soul, You Worry Too Much!

Reflections on Matthew 6:25-33
The Lilies of the Field
May 25, 2008
Church of Our Saviour

We worry too much. This is the flip side of the glory of being a human. We can have compassion, we can strive to imagine an infinite holy being, and even strive to imitate her. We have freedoms unimaginable for those natural wonders portrayed in this beautiful passage- the lily of the field and the birds of the air. And yet we worry.

We who worry are referenced in our Old Testament passage as well- we are the prisoners to whom the Lord says, "Come out." We who worry are the ones who are in darkness, to whom the Lord says, "Show yourselves."

But you might say, “Why shouldn’t we worry?” Given the earthquakes, tornadoes, food shortages, global warming, wars and rumors of wars, traffic congestion, heart congestion, the impending split in the Anglican Union, gasoline prices going through the roof, never having anything to wear, and the cruelty of bad hair days?

Well, according to scripture, we shouldn’t worry because we live in an unending state of grace- we just haven’t noticed it yet. We live unendingly in the great love of God, who as Jesus says, loves us ever so much more than a mother loves her nursing child. And even with the disasters looming, we live in an unimaginably beautiful and vast shelter- the shelter of creation- a shelter than literally could not be more glorious, more perfect for our needs.

In our gorgeous Gospel reading of today, Jesus calls to mind two creatures that don’t have very much in common with human beings.

A bird- a hummingbird, for example- is living in the moment to an extent that we can barely fathom. And living in the present moment makes worry impossible, because you have no thought of what is to come. Only, as the Buddhists would have it, this perfect present moment. If the hummingbird stops to think about the incredibly fast buzzing of its wings, it will fall. If it stops to consider the flavor of the nectar it is about to drink, its energy might not hold out.

With the lilies of the field, it seems to me we move into a higher level of consciousness. They don’t even move, at least not perceptibly to us. They just absorb the God-given glory of the sun, the minerals in the earth and spin out their exquisite form for us. And yes, they are clothed more incredibly than any designer fashion. But human beings rarely get to that level.

About the only person I can think of who approaches the serenity (or the beauty) of the lilies of the field, is also a person who has probably suffered more loss and hardship than anyone I know.

When I was 8 months pregnant and I had a two year old, I hired the formidable Laotian mountain woman, Fahm Fou Sae Chow, to help me. I was working at home, doing business coaching over the phone, and I needed someone to allow me quiet to work a few hours a day. When she first took stock of my situation, she looked at me with great pity.
“Just YOU??" she said. " Where is your mother? Your sisters? Your aunties? You are the only woman in your house??” She obliged me by cheerfully, and certainly without worry, by doing the work and supporting me as a mother, a sister and two aunts would have done.

I was very proud of the fact that I was going to have my baby at home. I knew that Fahm Fou had 8 children and so I asked her if she had them all at home. “No, no, none at home,” she said brightly. I was about to ask her what kind of hospital she went to when she finished the thought:

“In the field- very good in the field- no mess.” I then asked her if she had been alone all those times.

“Oh no!” She said. “Sometimes my husband was with me- sometimes.”

"You had all those babies in the field?” I asked.

“All except for Caen. We found him.”

“What?”

“During the Viet Nam war a man had a 2 year old tied to a porch- an orphan. He had food in a bowl like a dog. We asked for that child and he was happy to give it away. I was just 18 and I live with my parents. When we got married, Caen was our firstborn!”

I got to know my babysitter well. She invited my family over to her house in San Pablo many times, and I have rarely seen people live so well, or so worry-free. She had her grown daughters and a married son living with her and they had planted a large garden. All their bountiful, beautifully cooked meals came from that garden, complemented by chicken and pork that would have seemed like a dream in the holding camp in Thailand where she lived with her 8 children before she managed to come to the states.

After Fahm Fou and her eight children managed to get out of Laos, they were housed in this holding camp for 5 years. Times had been very hard in Laos during and after the war. Fahm Fou lost her husband and everything else she had during the war, and one of Fahm Fou’s sons got a high fever from eating spoiled pig- the remnants of a tiger’s kill in the jungle. His name is Caen, and he never fully recovered, and remains a sunny child at the age of 24.

Fahm Fou, without worry, had born seven children in the fields that the lilies and the birds happily shared with her in her beloved Laos. And, in her unworrisome way she somehow found time to embroider the most exquisite flowery creations for herself and her family to wear- the traditional richly ornamented garments of the Hmung mountain people. She lived with me almost daily for 2 years, and during that time she created her glorious embroidered wonders for everyone in my family. We were all dressed like lilies of the field by the time she got through with us.

Fahm Fou was puzzled about many things in our culture- among them the need for strollers. She often carried my infant daughter in a beautifully embroidered traditional Hmung snuggly she had made. In fact she carried my daughter virtually all the time that I was not nursing her. My daughter inherited some of Fahm Fou’s care freeness- some of her lack of worry, maybe from all that wonderful snuggling- that ever-present warmth. Fahm Fou taught me a lot about being a mother, and a lot about life. And in fact, something about God.

It seems to me that Jesus wants us to be like my infant daughter, enfolded in that warmth, held securely even during the dips and turns and ups and downs in the daily activities of the enfolder. God wants us to have that security, that faith.

But a life lacking in worry is so foreign to our culture that it seems almost necessary to plum other cultures, if not other times, to get a glimpse of it. I’d like to end with a poem by a favorite 13th century mystic of mine, Jelaludden Rumi. This is a poem addressed to we who worry in the voice of God. It’s called “You Worry Too Much.”

Oh soul, you worry too much…
Look at yourself,
what you have become.
You are now a field of sugar canes,
why show that sour face to me?

…You say that I keep you warm inside.
Then why this cold sigh?
You have gone to the roof of heavens
of this world of dust, why do you worry?

Oh soul, you worry too much.
Since you met me,
you have become a master singer,
and are now a skilled wrangler,
you can untangle any knot
of life's little leash
why do you worry?

Your arms are heavy
with treasures of all kinds.
About poverty,
why do you worry?

…Oh soul, you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?

You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.
You are the security…
why do you worry?
Be silent, like a fish,
and go into that pleasant sea.
You are in deep waters now,
of life's blazing glory.
Why do you worry?

Amen