The angels were holding a washcloth over my mouth, and I was struggling against them.
My arms and legs were thrashing.
I was suddenly afraid that I could not breathe.

I had awakened to find them basically on top of me, and I didn’t know what was happening.

The angels were using a spray bottle to pour water on the washcloth. I had the sudden fear that they were trying to waterboard me…that I might even die. The fact that a small spray bottle wasn’t nearly enough water to accomplish this was lost on me in the moment.
All I knew is: I had awakened to this scene, and I was terrified.

Turns out, this moment of “waking” was actually still a dream. One I actually had. About two weeks ago now.

I don’t often dream of angels. (I can only think of one other time, ever) I don’t think I’ve ever dreamed of being waterboarded. But it had been a restless night or worry and anxiety. I hadn’t been sleeping well. I’d already been up at 4 am, and this dream is what happened during my attempt to get back to sleep. I must have been drifting back out of consciousness, when this dream of being startled awake by angels visited me.

And then —still in the dream— I realized: These are ANGELS, not demons or enemies sent to torment me. My dreaming self said: “Oh…they’re not trying to hurt me…they’re somehow, wordlessly, trying to help me…”

I realized their wordless whispering was…
“Be STILL…rest from the cacophony of words in your mouth and in your head…”

So, in my dream, I stopped thrashing in my bed.
In my dream, I allowed a calm and a trust to come over me
And in both the dream and the real world, I fell into a very deep sleep. A first in many weeks.

I tell you about that dream because I’m going to take a wild guess that you might lately be having trouble sleeping too.
There are a lot of things wrong with the world.
There is a lot to worry about.

It can be very very easy to allow our anxieties to dark places of almost no sleep.

Or…in the waking world, it can be very very EASY to want to just keep pushing…to keep struggling…to keep believing that if we just worry a little more in the middle of the night, our problems will magically go away.
But that does’t often work.

Here’s what DOES work…

The more we follow Jesus’ advice about worry, stress, and anxiety…the more we can again become grateful people. This is a lesson we have to come back to…time and time again. And maybe you need to come back to it today as well. You’ve heard Jesus’ lesson on “Worry” in Matthew before, I am sure. (Matthew 6: 25-34). But a few things happened lately, right?

Perhaps you’re worried about the future of our nation.
(Can’t talk you down)

Perhaps you are missing loved ones in your own life?
(Can’t talk you down)

Perhaps you’re beating yourself up over things you did, or didn’t do…
(Can’t talk you down)

These are REAL things…I know they are…

But: So is Jesus’ advice to us today.

Jesus says: “LOOK at the birds of the air.”
Jesus says: “CONSIDER the Lillies of the field.”
Jesus asks: “can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?”

The answer is, of course, no. In fact, we can shorten our lives, through stress and worry. We know this.

And yet almost all of us get back on the worry train…
We sometime find it impossible to get OFF the worry train, and our nights become restless.

But…it is at precisely this moment that Jesus urges us to the opposite…to pull our gaze back inward and focus on the now.

Jesus invites us to “LOOK” at the birds of the air. Not just metaphorically, but actually LOOK at actual birds. The word “look” here is the same word the Bible uses when Jesus is “looking” at actual humans…and seeing them for who they really are. For example, it’s the same word Jesus uses when he “looks” at the rich young ruler.

This is ACTUAL looking at actual things in the actual real world…not just a theoretical, mental, or virtual, “looking.” The difference is not just academic. It’s through LOOKING it the real world that we reconnect with the real world again.

Humans use all sorts of tricks to reconnect with the actual world again. Some folks put a hand to their own chest, or touch the ground, or touch some talismanic object that has personal meaning for them.

But of these are getting at the same sense of physical “looking” that Jesus is encouraging here.

Jesus then invites us to “CONSIDER (or, Observe) the lilies of the field.” This word “consider” is different from the word “look” that he’s just used to describe the birds.

As Buddhists also know, focusing our mind on the simple here and now can calm our anxieties, lower our fear, and reset our soul. This is a place where our Christian practice directly intersects with meditation advice from Eastern traditions.

The word “consider” (or “observe”) that is used here is “katamanthanō.” And, remarkably, this is the ONLY time it appears in our Bible.
In ancient Greece, this word meant: “to direct one’s mind to something…”

And this is the kernel of truth Jesus is getting at: Where we direct our thoughts can drive how much we do, or do not, fear or worry.

This is not to make a foolish claim that our thoughts or prayers “manifest” 100% of our future destiny. I’m not talking about that kind of belief in either “prayer” or “manifesting.” (Both are common ideas, both among fundamentalist Christians and also among the “spiritual but not religious” today)

What Jesus is saying is that if we are spinning out, in our worry, it’s very unlikely we’ll make good decisions in the real world. It’s very likely our worry can spin into even greater anxiety and fear.

Reducing our worry by focusing our thoughts doesn’t magically “manifest” everything —or even anything— that we hope to have happen in the world. Which is why bothering to do it at all gets dismissed.

But, it does give us a chance to experience a surprising joy and thanksgiving, which can come in the midst of anxious times, even as we make the hard slog of working toward our goals.

Jesus says “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today…”

Jesus is NOT inviting us to ignore everything wrong with the world, or put our head in the sand. He’s acknowledging that worry is a very real thing, and that we have very real worries.

But only *today’s* worry is real…in the sense that it’s the only worry we can really do anything about.

This is not a magic trick.
But this IS a focus trick.
Jesus is inviting us to TRUST.

And, as we peer into this next New Year, many of you no doubt have a dread of what might be coming. Again, I can’t talk you down. There is very likely a lot of hard times ahead.

But, this day, and every day, get through life, put one foot in front of the other, by resizing our fears down what we can deal with NOW…not theoretical worry about what MIGHT happen tomorrow.

This is the heart of what our AA friends call “One day at a time…”

Jesus is saying that when we become afraid and anxious, the way back to true selves is through literally looking at birds, carefully observing fields of grass… or, by allowing things like nature, music, art, other people, reading…or whatever it is that helps pull your focus back into the here and now.

This is the true heart of faith. This is, in my mind, truly what faith is. Contrary to what fundamentalists believe, faith is MORE than mental assent to magical logical propositions about God

As examples of how its done, check out these pictures. They’re from my friends, Alan Gann and Bill Holston. I see Alan regularly on my rides around White Rock. He’s a birder who takes remarkable pictures of birds. He’s taking Jesus’ advice in the most literal way possible. (Ironic for a Unitarian, of course…)

Bill is a social justice-minded lawyer, who spends his days fighting for the poor in eviction court. BUT…before court, he makes time to find some of the most remarkable scenes of nature in our county.

Thse pics were all taken within a few miles of where I am sitting. So, I post these pics to remind you all: even in the urban core, even with a busy life, or a justice-minded life (actually, *especially* then) getting out and seeing nature, connecting with the real world, is possible

Faith is deep, bedrock trust that helps calm our fears and anxieties when we most need it.

This is where Thanksgiving and gratitude actually come from. Thanksgiving can well up inside us when we allow our worries to subside, or to take their proper size. We can count of blessings once we stop the spiral of our conscious minds and see the ways we are still blessed, even in the most stressful of our days.

This coming Thanksgiving week, you might be worried about everything from Uncle Bob’s drunken political dinner rants, to the potential end of constitutional democracy. You might be worried about your personal loved ones, or what 2025 will bring to actual humans who will be targeted by racists, homophobic, or xenophobic policies.
I can’t talk you down from the idea that any of these aren’t real threats.

But I do know that true thanksgiving —a few blessed days of blessed rest this week— has never been more needed by all of us.

So, I hope you get some rest, and I hope you can feel some gratitude.

I really do.

Whatever else you’re dealing with this Thanksgiving Week, I hope you can put aside your anxiety and worry and live in a grateful NOW. It might just help you get through whatever else is coming next year.

To set that gratitude table for us all, let’s let Jesus have the final word:

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”