Do the Next Right Thing

I tend to be a planner. I like lists. I like being prepared. I like knowing what to expect. I work best with goals and plans and my resulting to-do list. (Can I get a show of hands?)

Seasons of pain, though, strip away my plans, my sense of security, my vision of what life will look like next week, next month, next year. I’ve seen it in depression, when plans and the simplest tasks become a burden under its overwhelming weight. I’ve seen it during mysterious seasons of illness, when I was forced to slow down, to ask for help, to adjust my expectations of what I could physically do. We saw this in the midst of infertility, when we lost our ability to plan, to envision our future, to hold onto a time line.

Grief, fear, depression, illness—these cannot be planned away. They cannot be sped through via a list or well-laid preparations. They slow us down. They lay waste to our plans—and our ability to craft new ones. Pain has a way of shattering the facade of our control, our ability to predict the future, of our sense of power. In such moments, life can feel terribly overwhelming.

How are we to move through these seasons? How are we to move through this season, when the world as we knew it seems to crumble?

Some of us are facing sickness. Some of us are fearful for loved ones. Some of us are grieving, are anxious, are depressed, are angry. Some of us are numb. We’re isolated, cut off physically from communities, from loved ones, from our normal routines. It can feel overwhelming to the point of paralysis. How are we to navigate this?

When we face seasons of pain, in which our lives and hearts are cracked open and laid bare, we lose our ability to plan ahead. How can we, when we need all the energy and strength available to survive each day, each hour, each moment? All we can do is steadily live through the pain, to keep moving forward breath by breath. All we can do is the next right thing.

The reality is, this is all we ever can do. Even the best of our plans and the most glorious of our daydreams require us to make a tiny litany of choices to see them take on flesh and blood. Pain in all its forms only makes this more apparent: all I can ever do in any given moment is the next right thing.

So in this global moment of chaos, of grief, of fear, of suffering—what is the next right thing for you to do? What is the next right thing to live faithfully where you are in this moment? What is the next right thing to move through this season? What is the next right thing to choose life?

Though there will be similar themes, what this looks like will take on different forms for each of us. Over the last week, for me it has meant taking a walk, reading a novel, and eating ice cream. It has meant calling a friend and keeping my distance from people I’d much rather embrace. It has been cooking through long recipes and pulling pre-made meals from the freezer. It has meant staying informed and also knowing when I need to pull away from my news feed and the latest reports. It has meant slowing down to keep pace with a toddler’s fascination with things I have come to see as mundane. It has been watching my favorite cooking show, praying more, and letting myself have the space to have a good cry.

The next right thing is not always glamorous or easy. It doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes it’s doing dishes or folding laundry or sanitizing those door handles. Sometimes it’s changing dirty diapers or tending to scraped knees. It may be finishing that project you’ve been putting off or renewing your resolve (once again) to stay at home.

The next right thing may also not be something you do at all. It may be taking time to rest. It may be stillness. It may be giving yourself space to grieve. It may be giving yourself space for delight. It doesn’t have to be monumental. It may not be something you can check off a list. But it may still be the next right thing. So do it.

As we walk through this season together, it will be easy to think about what we can’t do, what we can’t control. It will be easy to think weeks ahead to what may (or may not) happen. When your mind starts down these trails, when you find yourself uncertain, paralyzed, overwhelmed, fearful—Pause. Breathe. Look at where you are in this moment, consider what the next tiny step is towards faithfulness, towards life—and do the next right thing.

How to Care for Your Mind in the Time of Social Distancing

“The human heart is like a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on, but then ‘tis itself it grinds and wears away.” - Martin Luther

We find ourselves in an unusual predicament. We are living in a time in which the circumstances in our world spark anxiety. It’s a concerning situation. Every day we see the coronavirus spread. We see the loss of life. We see empty shelves in our grocery stores and hear rumors of shortages of medical supplies.

This is compounded by the practices of social distancing we are adopting to slow the spread of the virus. Even if you had no prior predisposition towards anxiety or depression, the situation is psychologically vulnerable. We’re more isolated and less occupied. All the while with more fodder for our twisting, spinning thoughts.

What are we to do to care for our minds in the time of social distancing? How can we practice psychological self-care when we’re forced into a unique circumstance that keeps us from common means of keeping ourselves healthy?

During this time, I’m finding some advice from Martin Luther. (See last week’s post on Luther’s wisdom about loving our neighbors during a public health crisis.) He was no stranger to depression or anxiety. He knew what it felt like to be locked in cycling thoughts and fears. He also knew what it felt like to be socially isolated.—He spent nearly a year sequestered in Wartburg Castle during the beginning of Protestant Reformation, when his life was at stake.

Luther’s advice doesn’t replace the importance of appropriate mental health care, and I know that for those of us with mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, adhering to his wisdom will be that much more difficult. But regardless of whether we live with a mental health diagnosis, he gives all of us excellent practical advice on taking care of our minds.

1. Get Out

When Luther found the “millstone” of his heart grinding away, he rushed out among his pigs “rather than remain alone by myself.” If you live in an area like I do, some of you may actually be able to find the companionship of farm animals. For the rest of us, following this advice might mean taking the dog for a walk, if you have one, or simply going outside and paying attention to the world around you. Watch the birds, who your Father in Heaven cares for. See the budding trees and flowers your Father in Heaven clothes. Breathe in deeply the fresh air and root yourself in your place. Let the physicality of the life around you pull you from your mind.

2. Flee Solitude

Luther also often counseled those who struggled with anxiety and depression to “flee solitude,” for it was solitude that gave thoughts space to fester. This is incredibly difficult advice to follow now, as we practice social distancing, so we may need to get creative. Use the technology available to you to connect with someone from afar—call someone on the phone or video chat with a friend. Think of creative ways for in-person contact that still maintains recommended social distancing practices. I’ve heard of neighbors gathering outside on lawn chairs spaced six feet or more apart and of friends picnicking with self-provided food, separated by a similar buffer. These things do not replace in-person contact or assuage our innate need for human touch. But they are some of our best options to follow Luther’s advice.

3. Find Delight

He also recommends to “joke and jest,” as a way to make morbid thoughts fly. He encourages the depressed and despondent to relish good food, to partake in activities they enjoy. He understood the importance of delight in fighting the battles of our minds. This, again, may need to be reimagined during this time—but keep your eyes open for and seek out even the simplest forms of delight and sources of laughter during this tumultuous season.

4. Dwell on Truth and Hope

Finally, give the mill of your heart something fruitful to “grind.” I’m all for staying informed. It’s an important part of engaging with the world. We do no one a service by sticking our heads in the sand or downplaying the current situation. But there does come a time to pull away from the headlines and the news feeds. As your anxious thoughts build, pull away and give your mind something different to process. Replace your morbid thoughts with a source of hope. Luther would encourage you to turn your eyes to Christ. He would encourage you to sing. Meditate on Scripture. Pray. We must live with eyes wide open to the reality facing us, all while anchoring ourselves in the truth of the sovereignty and goodness of the God we worship. Feeding our minds with truth positions us to be better able to abide with peace in the midst of the chaos.

Stay well, friends.

Faith in the Age of Coronavirus

“I will ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I will fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I will avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infest and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I will not avoid place or person but will go freely…” See, this is such a God-fearing faith because it is neither brash nor foolhardy…

I read these words of advice this week. They were timely in light of the rise of COVID-19 to pandemic proportions. (Bonus if you know where these words are from without reading ahead.) They didn’t come from Twitter or Facebook. They aren’t from a blog or magazine. I didn’t hear them in a sermon or podcast. They came from a much older, much lower-tech age. They are the words of the great Protestant reformer, Martin Luther, in an open letter with his thoughts about the proper response of Christians during an outbreak of the bubonic plague.

Admittedly, the stakes we are facing with the coronavirus are not as high as those of the black death, but I find that the major themes of Martin Luther’s advice still stand today.

1. Do not be consumed by fear. Luther prays—for God’s protection and intervention—and refuses to be controlled by fear. I’ve said often that as Christians our actions in such situations should be governed by faith plus facts, not by fear. We can face the world with realism (facts) but not be dominated by fear because we have faith in a good and powerful God. This does not mean we don’t take appropriate precautions (see more below), but it does mean we do not need to succumb to panic. This rejection of fear may be easier for some of us than others, but even for those of us who suffer from anxiety, it is the goal. We hold the steadfastness of God’s faithfulness and grace in front of our eyes, and we cling to the resurrection hope he offers us, even if we must remind ourselves of these things moment by moment.

2. Love your neighbor. Luther hinges his entire argument on the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” In his day, that meant a willingness to risk contracting the plague yourself if your neighbor was in need of spiritual comfort or of physical care. Today, it may still mean those things or may take other forms. It may mean running errands or going to the store for a “neighbor” who is of higher risk. It may mean supporting families with children or college students who have had their schools shut down. It may mean speaking up against a hateful or racist comment or act toward an Asian or Asian-American (yes, it’s happening). It may mean checking in on someone who lives alone during a quarantine. It may be a note or a phone call to someone who is ill or anxious.

Think about your situation, your neighborhood, your church community, and use your imagination. As we walk through the next days, weeks, and months, let this be what shapes your thoughts and your actions: how can I love my neighbor today?

Luther mentions one other way to love your neighbor that remains particularly pertinent today:

3. Love your neighbor by taking care of yourself. I have heard people shrug off concern over the coronavirus outbreak because it’s only dangerous for the elderly or immunocompromised. I have heard them downplay its significance because it won’t do much harm to someone young and relatively healthy—like them, like me. This is not driven by a love of neighbor. We are given an opportunity to suffer inconvenience for the sake of caring for those who may be vulnerable. We are given a simple way to protect and affirm the dignity of their lives and health.

So, we follow the advice given to us by the medical community at the moment. For starters, we wash our hands (seriously, please do this). We don’t go out if there’s a possibility we’re sick. As they come, we honor the recommendations and restrictions put in place for “social distancing” to slow the spread of the virus enough for the medical community to not become overloaded, putting even more people unnecessarily at risk. (If you haven’t seen the “flattening the curve” chart yet, you can look at it here. It gives a good visual for why this is necessary.) We do these things not out of fear or hysteria. We do them because it is a simple way to love our neighbors who could suffer “as a result of [our] negligence,” in Luther’s words.

Each day, we face a new onslaught of news reports, statistics, diagrams, and hot takes about the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s easy to get swept up in it all. But this is my adopted approach, and I would encourage you to put it into practice as well. Faith and facts, not fear. This means I spend time praying. It means I make sure I am getting good information (facts) to guide my understanding and actions related to this virus (unless you are an infectious disease specialist, it’s a time worth listening to the professionals). But above all it means I seek to love my neighbor as myself, just as Jesus commanded.