Just Relax – Easier Said than Done!

Psalm 69:1-23(24-30)31-38 • Psalm 73
Ecclus. 50:1,11-24 • Rev. 17:1-18 • Luke 13:31-35

Psalm 69 starts off with:

Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me.

I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

And I feel like I’m choking; I can’t breathe. These words speak to me today. I can identify with having no foothold, and feeling like there’s no way out. The more I struggle the deeper I sink. It’s like being in quicksand. Quicksand! Everything I know about quicksand I learned watching cowboy shows in the 50’s. And what I learned is that the more you struggle in quicksand the faster you sink. The way to survive quicksand is to relax rather than fight. I know this, and I’ve forgotten it and relearned it so many times. To accept the mess that I’m in.

Just this past week, Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault wrote about Thomas Keating’s spiritual development.*. They believe that these periods of darkness and helplessness are a necessary part of spiritual development. From one of Keating’s poems, “Loneliness in the Night:”

His silence is a kiss,
His presence an embrace.

But now he is fading, fading.
And I am alone . . .

Even Keating had these times of feeling bereft, alone. The Buddhists talk about “groundlessness.” The periods of having nothing to hold on to. No ideas, no sense of right or wrong. Christian and Buddhist wisdom points me to doing my best to relax, breathe slowly, float and accept rather than struggle, and to open my mind-body-spirit to receiving wisdom from the One.

*Daily Meditations from the Center for Action and Contemplation, cac.org, 10/18/20-10/24/20.

Written by Cathy Campbell

Cathy Campbell is a licensed counselor. She finds that she and her clients are having trouble staying afloat these days.