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Johnny: Big things are coming your way, sweetheart. Don’t you worry.

Moira: Okay. I don’t. Worry is but undernourished enthusiasm.  (Schitt’s Creek, Season 6, episode 13)

I don’t really know what that means.  But it makes me laugh.

It’s been a year.  On February 21, 2020, “Patient 1” was admitted to hospital in Italy.  He was a 38 year old marathon runner, and he couldn’t breath.

Three weeks later the Irish government closed the schools, and shortly thereafter, everything else.

You remember, I’m sure…

Our enthusiasm has been decidedly undernourished for the past year.

We worry about loved ones we cannot see or visit. 

We worry about children in school. 

We worry about children out of school.

We worry about loss of income, and local businesses closing.

We worry about mental health and isolation.

We worry about the person in the queue behind us who is standing too close.

Did I leave something out? Of course I did…

Worry has a way of taking us out of the present moment.  It transports us into an imagined future that undoubtedly will bring disaster.

Worry wants us to miss what is right in front of us.  THIS moment. The one you are living, and the only one you actually CAN live.

And in these times, we are overwhelmed. 

We’ve just had our week of mid-term break, and tomorrow (or probably “today” when you read this) home schooling starts again.

And Jesus says, 

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.” (Matthew 6:25-29)

It feels like it is easy to say, “do not worry about your life”.  It is harder to just STOP.

What we can do is notice those moments that are right in front of us – the lilies of the field, and the birds of the air, and laughter, and the love of others, and sunshine and longer days.

Lift up your head.

Worry imagines a future of scarcity. 

Look for moments of abundance – and lean into them. 

Nourish the enthusiasm.  (smile)

Inhale: But you, Lord, are a shield around me,

Exhale: my glory, the one who lifts my head.

Psalm 3:3

That’s what I would have said…