“Anxiety is the inability to be present.  It’s the state of agitation in which we lose our larger capacity to empathize, to love, to respond to the needs of others.  When we’re anxious we become squirrel-like – nervous and wary, teeth chattering, eyes scanning for danger, muscles spring loaded, waiting to scamper up the nearest tree at every sound.  Anxiety comes from words that denote “to choke.”  When we’re anxious we can’t breathe.  We feel life closing in, leaving fewer and fewer choices.  We find ourselves unable to discern real fears from reactive worry.  We lose patience, and we’re unable to trust.  We get suspicious, distancing ourselves from others, ourselves, and even God.  We become lost in our heads, caught up in fearful thoughts and calculations.  Our minds oscillate between the future and the past.  We worry about what should have happened or fear what might take place.   In anxiety we lose touch with what’s driving us.  Our actions become self-protective, reactive, and compulsive.”   -  Mark Yaconelli, Contemplative Youth Ministry: Practicing the Presence of Jesus, page 35.

It’s Advent.  As I prepare for evening prayer at the church today, I can only pray that the anxiety of the world gets left at the door. 

“The inability to be present,”…”When we’re anxious we can’t breath”…

Lord, may I, and the people I come into contact with today, be able to catch their breath.  May they breathe deep…and breath deep again…and may they make themselves present to God today, and the miracles of this world.  Let it be.