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“Do not worry about your life.” -Jesus

For a year or so in college, I lived in a constant state of on-edge.

I was the journalism major who worried all the time, who suffered from anxiety.

My body held down the here and now, but my mind wouldn’t sit still. Thoughts raced, and I entertained “what-ifs” and concocted all kinds of scenarios.

Which is why I really needed it one night when I stumbled upon this quote:

“Anxiety is a temptation in itself and also the source from and by which other temptations come.
Sadness is that mental pain which is caused by the involuntary evils which affect us. These may be external – such as poverty, sickness, contempt of others – or they may be internal – such as ignorance, dryness in prayer, aversion, and temptation itself. 

When the soul is conscious of some evil, it is dissatisfied because of this, and sadness is produced. The soul wishes to be free from this sadness, and tries to find the means for this.
If the soul seeks deliverance for the love of God, it will seek with patience, gentleness, humility, and calmness, waiting on God’s providence rather than relying on its own initiative, exertion, and diligence. If it seeks from self-love, it is eager and excited and relying on self rather than God. 

Anxiety comes from an irregulated desire to be delivered from the evil we experience. Therefore, above all else, calm and compose your mind. Gently and quietly pursue your aim.”

The quote comes from St. Francis de Sales.

In it, I found hope.

And later the same week, I found another anxiety quote, by chance:

“Do not look forward to what may happen tomorrow. The same everlasting Father who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow, and every day. Either he will shield you from suffering, or he will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, then. Put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.”

That quote, as it turns out, also comes from St. Francis de Sales.

Two in a week? This is too much, I thought. Who is this guy? So the journalist in me did a little digging. Which is how I discovered that Francis de Sales is the patron saint of journalists. Which is how I knew that my finding those quotes when I did wasn’t an accident.

That God knew I needed the reminders.

That I had forgotten what Jesus said, in what is probably now my most-read passage of scripture:

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life…” (Matt. 6:25)

May we remember today and always that He said it with sincerity.

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An adoption story.

Cindy Boyer was browsing through online profiles of children with no families when she stumbled upon a little girl from Russia. 

An adoption advocacy organization, Reece’s Rainbow, had named the girl Adalyn. She is a year and a half old, has short hair, dark eyes, and a bilateral cleft lip, gum and palate. 

Cindy stopped scrolling. She stared at the picture. 

Adalyn’s situation was all too familiar to her. 

“Immediately, I knew,” she said. “This is our baby.”

Click here to read the rest of the story, my latest feature for the paper. It’s online now and in print in tomorrow’s Hernando edition of the Tampa Bay Times.

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Why parents are important.

I write tonight with tight lungs and tired eyes.

I am a month into the four and a week that make up the fall semester. Part of it is my second counseling practicum. For that, I work at a residential facility for minors who are ordered to be there by a judge, for instance, or are in foster care but between placements, or have run away from home or have been kicked out by their parents.
Despite my flaring asthma and the go-go-going from which there is rarely a break, I like this. 
I like this a lot.
This work requires creativity. It tries your patience, and (hopefully) refines it. It widens your comfort zone and your perspective.
Some days you laugh. Other days you lock yourself in your office. Other days, you shoot hoops like an 11-year-old, with an 11-year-old, during a counseling session.
Every day you’re grateful.
Grateful for home, and good parents.
Every day you’re challenged.
Challenged to listen to young people who’ve mostly never been heard. To stay calm during crises. To model the behaviors and coping skills the center hopes kids will learn before they leave.
You realize why parents are important.
Why good parenting is important.
Why what I do now – while I’m single and have no kids – is as important as what I’ll do when I’m married with children.

“Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.
If we want to teach our chilldren to dare greatly in this ‘never enough’ culture, the question isn’t so much ‘Are you parenting the right way?’ as it is: ‘Are you the adult that you want your child to grow up to be?’ -Brene Brown, from her book Daring Greatly

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Hands and feet (A Repost).

I squinted at the screen and punched away at my keyboard. School lunch menus. Somebody’s got to type ’em.

The police scanner on my editor’s desk crackled. I kept typing. Crispy chicken salad or tuna plate. Choice of veggie sticks, fresh seasonal fruit —

Vehicle overturned.

Vehicle overturned? I stopped typing and started listening to the scanner.

Two ejected. Block the road. Re-route traffic. Send the helicopter.

Of course. Something big always happens while I’m alone in the newsroom.

I interrupted an editor’s lunch with a head’s up phone call. I pulled up the Florida Highway Patrol Web site to find the intersection. The TV news reporter who shares our office called from the road.

“This is massive,” she said. “The worst single accident I’ve seen in my career.”

I made a second call to the editor. She called a photographer who called me for directions. A reporter met him at the scene.

The rest is history.

Another tragedy. Add it to the list.

The two Tampa police officers shot to death during a traffic stop.
The toddler killed in the care of his father.
The church destroyed in a fire.
The man who died when he drove his truck into a pond (the six kids and quadriplegic wife he left behind).
This fatal crash.

While we – humans – sort through them, we ask questions. It’s natural.

What happened?

How did it happen? How could it? Why?

There are other questions.

Why did God let this happen? Or, more usually, why did your God let it happen? How could a God be good who allows this?

My response is rough around the edges.

“You think this is His fault? You leave Him out of this!”

Shane Claiborne says it better in an old radio interview:

“And I can remember a comic in Philadelphia that was in the paper. There were these two guys that were asking that very question. It was — and one guy said, ‘You know, I wonder why God allows all this poverty and pain and hurting in the world?’ And his friend says, ‘Well, why don’t you ask God that?’ And the guy says, ‘Well, I guess I’m scared.’ And he says, ‘What are you scared of?’ He says, ‘I guess I’m scared that God will ask me the same question.'”

We ask why God allows sickness, but we won’t take care of ourselves.

We ask God why there’s poverty, but won’t make eye contact with the homeless guy who stands next to our cars at red lights.

We ask God why there’s murder, but we won’t love our neighbor.

Why?

In Shane Claiborne’s words…

God’s “going, ‘Hey, you’re my body. You are my hands and my feet.’ And, you know, that this is something that we are entrusted with. And I think, probably, one of the most difficult things that Jesus ever did was sort of leave this idea of transforming the world or the kingdom of God coming in the hands of such a ragtag bunch of people that goof it up over and over.”

– – – –

This post originally appeared on the blog on Aug. 14, 2010.

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Read the Catechism of the Catholic Church in a year.

A thousand pages of awesome.

It’s with delight and excitement that I report the following:

YOU CAN GET THIS BOOK EMAILED TO YOU.

As part of the Roman Catholic Church’s impending Year of Faith, @CatechismAPI has partnered with flocknote.com to deliver the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church to your email inbox.

If you aren’t Catholic, but you’ve wondered what exactly it is that the Catholic Church teaches, this is your most convenient chance. And if you’re Catholic, how big this book is might concern you (mine’s about a thousand pages). But if you sign up, you’ll receive only a little of the book at a time, in one email a day from Oct. 11, 2012 through Nov. 24, 2013.

I signed up. Will you? Click here.