Weltschmerz

Continuing with his riff on Matthew 6:25, Howard Thurman writes this:

“Take no thought for your own life.  What a strange thing it is, this injunction.  Up to this period in my life, I have seemed to survive by taking thought for my life.  Upon deeper reflection, I begin to see that my lie is not now, nor has it ever been, my own.  I did not create nor have I sustained my life through the years.  In so many ways, without my own plans and purposes, hard places have been made soft and rough places smooth.  It is a source or immeasurable satisfaction and comfort to me to know that God, who is the Source and Sustainer or life, can be trusted to see me all the way to the end and beyond.  Take no thought for your life – it is in God’s hands and ever, when I am obeying the laws of life, it is God who works through me.

Take no thought for your life.”

Take no thought for your life.  That’s a BIG ASK for a stubborn old man, especially given, as Thuurman notes, “I have seemed to survive by taking thought for my life.”  “Seemed” being the operative word. But it occurs to me that this is perhaps a potential benefit of age – to become weary to the point that those ideas and thoughts that have been knocking at the door for years finally find a door left ajar, if only because it seemed too much effort/trouble to get up and close it. (See one of my favorite German words, “weltschmerz.”)