Is the world causing you anxiety? Do you find yourself on edge, ready to fight strangers on the internet about situations that don’t remotely concern you because the news cycle told you that the appropriate response is outrage? Here are some ways to maintain your peace. I don’t say to find peace, because if you haven’t already found your peace hiding under the protective mantle of the Theotokos, these tips may not help you.
I said what I said.
I am also not saying to protect your peace. Because although the best offense is a good defense, that tightness in your chest is not a protection, its a cortisol spike. Put aside the true crime and learn to discern the difference.
Without further disclaimers or clarifications, here’s how to maintain your peace when the world is encroaching with the temptation to engage in an addiction to anxiety:
Stop Watching The News
A priest asked me recently which news sources I listened to. Before I had a chance to reply a friend interjected, “Don’t ask Daja. She’s in a cave eating berries.” I have never felt so seen. I mean, when it comes right down to it, I don’t think keeping up with the news is all that healthy. Call me crazy, but this brain of mine was not wired to wake up in the morning and spend the first half-hour reading about all the atrocities committed the world over while I was sleeping. I wasn’t meant to see footage of assassinations, brutality, or what some man did in the bathroom of the Planet Fitness. I wake up peaceful. I am not going to sabotage myself by catching up. Absolutely not. I’m going to leave the keeping up with someone who is paid to do that.
Gosh, these blueberries are delicious. I think I’ll make a pie.
Stop Forfeiting Your Intuition To So-Called Experts
When someone says that experts now recommend x,y,z, I shut off. I have no idea what is said after that. Do experts still caution against saturated fat or eggs or whisky or running or yoga or falling asleep after midnight or drinking too much tea or having a baby after 35, I have no idea. Because guess what the experts are not an expert on? Me.
So, I will not be consulting WebMD, the USDA, the American Academy of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, ChatGPT, or your celebrity psychologist. I will be taking counsel from my cryptic dreams interpreted by my friend who lives in the woods. I will be asking the flowers and birds about contentment (Jesus said to. Look it up.) and the Church Fathers and Desert Harlots about how to pray and offer sacrifices.
The myth of progressivism is killing us. That is the idea that all progress is good–or even–that all movement is progress. The very idea of progress presupposes that there is a finish line. But that goal post keeps moving, so I’m convinced it is a mirage.
There is nothing new under the sun.
The Ancients are the experts.
I will die on that hill.
It’s Me, Hi. I’m The Problem, It’s Me
Who is it popular to blame for the world’s problems at the moment? Conservatives, Liberals, the Jews, the Muslims, celebrities, corrupt corporations, unholy clergy? The answer is closer than all that. If we are honest, we know that.
I’ve become determined to know my own weaknesses and sins. Honestly, that just leaves so little room for an inordinate fascination and preoccupation with the indiscretions and shortcomings of others. If I want to know what is wrong with the world, I have to start by figuring out what is wrong with me. Alas, it’s easier to react to clickbait and participate in manufactured outrage than to sit with the mirror and address the problems over which I actually have control. Chesterton wrote in the Daily News in 1905:
“One thing, of course, must be said to clear the ground. Political or economic reform will not make us good and happy, but until this odd period nobody ever expected that they would. Now, I know there is a feeling that Government can do anything. But if Government could do anything, nothing would exist except Government. Men have found the need of other forces. Religion, for instance, existed in order to do what law cannot do—to track crime to its primary sin, and the man to his back bedroom. The Church endeavoured to institute a machinery of pardon; the State has only a machinery of punishment. The State can only free society from the criminal; the Church sought to free the criminal from the crime. Abolish religion if you like. Throw everything on secular government if you like. But do not be surprised if a machinery that was never meant to do anything but secure external decency and order fails to secure internal honesty and peace. If you have some philosophic objection to brooms and brushes, throw them away. But do not be surprised if the use of the County Council water-cart is an awkward way of dusting the drawing-room. In one sense, and that the eternal sense, the thing is plain. The answer to the question “What is Wrong?” is, or should be, “I am wrong.” Until a man can give that answer his idealism is only a hobby.”
How is taking the blame maintaining my peace? Well, for one, it is far less exhausting than to constantly be looking for a scapegoat. And secondly, it takes me out of the role of judge and jury and free to accept mercy. For as long as I sit in judgment over others I cut off myself from the mercy of God who deeply longs to show me mercy.
Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you;
therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you.
For the Lord is a God of justice;
blessed are all those who wait for him. (Isaiah 30:18)
Everyone Belongs In The Kitchen
Finally, in maintaining peace, almost nothing is more helpful than getting in the kitchen and doing things the old way. Make soup by beginning with good bones. Make bread from scratch and sip your tea as it slowly as the dough rises. Grind your coffee beans by hand as you pray Hail Marys. Make some jam low and slow over the stove letting the wholesome stickiness seep into your bitter soul. Learn to shuck oysters and soak grains and use a mortar and pestle. Somehow there is soul maintenance in these small acts of dignified work.
I’m a Peasant
I like to think of myself as a medieval peasant (who has access to the internet and likes to wear mini-skirts) who doesn’t concern herself too deeply with what is happening in Washington DC, the state capitol, or the Vatican. Now, hear me out. Imagine the year is 1378 and no one knows who the pope is because there are multiple claims to the papacy. (True story.) But, this causes me zero worry as a faithful Catholic because I don’t learn about it until its nearly over. I’m quite occupied tending my garden, praying the angelus at noon, taking some bread to the neighbor two miles away who just gave birth to her 12th child. On Sunday I go to Mass and I invite the country parish priest over for dinner and to bless my fields. By the time I know about the row in Rome, they probably have it settled. But I’ll pray a Rosary for the conclave just in case.
Bible itself is not a book for the faint of heart, as Rich Mullins said, “It is a book full of all the greed and glory and violence and tenderness and sex and betrayal that befits mankind.” So, it is not that the world is darker, rather it’s that we have a morbid fascination with the world.
I have a hunch that when I get to the pearly gates God isn’t going to ask me to take responsibility of the actions of people on the other side of the world. But he will ask me if I stopped in and visited my neighbor who is a shut-in. He may very well ask me if I bought a cup of coffee for the homeless guy on the corner. He may inquire as to why I didn’t take a casserole to the new mom. He may ask an account of all the Rosaries left unsaid and all the good deed left undone. If my paltry answer is that I was too busy fighting with people in the combox on Instagram or doomscrolling YouTube, I don’t want to see the sad look in The Good One’s eyes.
I’m a peasant who is trying her best to work in her own garden and finish her own laundry. There isn’t enough time to read all the good books and pray all the Masses and love all the people. I can best maintain my peace by staying in my lane.
reconciling things 