In Meditations of the Heart Howard Thurman takes on that conundrum in Matthew 6:25. You know (in the King James): “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.” Though in some versions the translation is not “do not worry” but “take no thought.” Which is where we pick up Thurman:
“Take no thought. This day I shall desert my anxieties. I shall forsake them – cut the off from the food supply of my spirit. Confident am I that if I do not feed them they cannot long survive…. Into God’s hand do I yield myself this day, with all that it involves for me, with he faith that I can take complete refuge in the knowledge and the love of God. For me this will not be easy, nor do I lightly undertake it.”
Boy, he said a mouthful there!
My anxieties – “if I do not feed them they cannot long survive.” Well, intellectually, I know that to be true, but damn, my Jabba the Hutt anxieties have been so well fed over the years that they can live a good while off their existing body fat. So the “this will not be easy” is, well, classic understatement.
It occurs to me... 