I am the interim chair for the Commission on the Status and Role of Women (COSROW) for the Iowa Annual Conference. In that role, I oversee the budget for COSROW. A few weeks ago, I checked in with Ron Carlson, Conference Treasurer and Director of Administrative Services, and Susan Lawton, Connectional Ministries Project Manager, to find out what funds remained in the COSROW account. What I thought COSROW’s fund balance was differed from what Ron and Susan understood. It was all a misunderstanding. You know how misunderstandings happen. “What-you-thought-I-said” careens into “what-I-thought-you-said.” Imperfect human communication results. Adding to the confusion, our communication happened via email. It took a day to clarify what had happened, and eventually, all was resolved. It was simply a misunderstanding. Misunderstandings happen. Easily.
This isn’t an essay about the COSROW budget or Ron and Susan. (Bless Ron and Susan in their work of keeping us organized.)
It is actually about what happened in my mind during the 24 hours while the misunderstanding was unresolved.
This is actually about anxiety. I know anxiety can reach levels that are paralyzing, threaten mental well-being, and require professional intervention. Mental health care is essential.
I am not writing about that level of anxiety. I am talking more about the garden-variety anxiety, the common aching worry that we all carry in the day-to-day. This worry-out-of-proportion anxiety seems like a national epidemic. We worry a lot.
Anxiety is opportunistic, hanging around like an unwanted guest waiting to consume our thoughts.
And that’s just what happened to me during these 24 hours of misunderstanding. I was surprised by how quickly I became anxious and how anxious I was. I went from zero-60 in a matter of minutes. How had I messed this up? What had I overlooked? I stewed over the past, trying to find the exact moment when things derailed. I brooded about the future. How will this be resolved?
I visualize us carrying our anxieties around in a bucket. Sometimes the bucket is nearly empty, and sometimes it is so full we can hardly lift it. During the 24 hours of misunderstanding, my anxiety bucket was overflowing. It was the opposite of Psalm 23 when “my cup runneth over” with goodness and mercy. My bucket grew heavier and heavier, and it runneth over, creating a mild stomachache and persistent attempts at kicking myself. I tried all day to shake it. I went for a walk. I read. I talked with friends in an attempt to get my mind off it. Nothing worked. I just kept dragging that heavy bucket around.
I am usually a pretty calm person. I can usually find my way through anxiety. When I encounter a conflict or a challenge, I tell myself, “This is the journey we are on now,” and watch for the way grace is at work. I try to respond with faith.
I couldn’t get there this time. Why did this make me so anxious?
For one thing, the misunderstanding was about money. Money and anxiety are good friends. In recent weeks, our stock markets have been described as “volatile.” My online dictionary defines “volatile” as “liable to change rapidly and unpredictably, especially for the worse.” That’s great fodder for anxiety. Looking at the stock market’s record in the last few months, there are a lot of financial experts who are also carrying buckets of anxiety. Lots of people who depend on those markets are anxious, too.
Money is really just a tool we created to make it easier to exchange goods and services. Don’t misunderstand me. I know money is important. Money puts food on the table and maintains our homes, and provides salaries for our teachers and nurses, and everyone else. Money is essential to maintain our churches.
But it is just money, and it is not the most important thing. We are in trouble when we think it is.
I was once a fundraiser. I worked for a non-profit as the Director of Development. My job was to raise $2.4 million per year to support our mission. My team and I raised those funds from individual donors, corporations, and events. When I first started that job, the objective seemed clear: get money. How often in business meetings and at churches do we hear someone lament, “We need money”? My agency needed money. My job depended on my ability to raise money.
So, as the Director of Development, I set off to raise money. But within a short period of time, my understanding of my work changed. My work wasn’t really about money. That was a byproduct. My work was about people. We thought we needed money, but what we really needed was people.
The mission of our agency, the work I was doing, how I was spending my days, and thus my life, was (and is) about relationships. It was about connecting with people, not in some sort of manipulative way, hoping to open their wallets. It was about getting to know people, listening, telling our stories, and sharing our lives. If what we were doing was important, if we shared a common hope, the money would follow. If the money didn’t follow, well, what we were proposing was probably off track, didn’t meet the world’s needs, and didn’t address a shared hope. It took a lot of faith to come to that realization. Anxiety fought against this understanding, but faith won, eventually.
There’s lots more to say about money—how it can be used as a weapon, how it judges us and measures us according to how much we have, how we can love it, and it never loves us back, how it is never satiated. But I will leave it there. Money makes us anxious.
We will soon have Annual Conference. There will probably be talk about money, maybe a lot. Recently, several pastors and lay people shared concerns about the finances in their churches with me. Lots of churches have buckets of financial anxiety lining the sanctuary. Again, money is important, but it is not the priority.
Turns out Jesus was right (Does this happen to you? This happens to me, often—Jesus being right and asking me to rethink.) In Matthew 4:19, Jesus calls his disciples and tells them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” Don’t fish for money. Follow Jesus and fish for people. Connect, build relationships, and share your life with people.
Jesus talked about money, but money was never the priority. People were Jesus’ priority. He went fishing, walked through small villages, and sat on hillsides all the while gathering people. He fished for the outcast and the leper. He found Zacchaeus up a tree, a woman by a well, and two disciples walking on a road to Emmaus.
When his disciples told him there wasn’t enough money to feed a crowd of people, he was undeterred. He looked at all the people around him, thanked God, and in God’s abundance, all were fed, a remarkable story that makes no financial sense at all.
24 hours after my misunderstanding, I was grateful to open my computer and read emails from Ron and Susan. They explained what they knew and how the misunderstanding might have happened. I replied. My relationship with Susan and Ron is much more valuable than the money I was concerned about. I want to repeat that. My relationship with Susan and Ron is much more valuable than the money I was concerned about. Later, I shared my misunderstanding with the members of the COSROW team. No worries, they responded. It would all work out. These people in my life are far more important than the dollars. They are the antidote to anxiety.
Ron, Susan, and the COSROW team kicked over my anxiety bucket and poured out all that worry. They shared themselves with me. We did not suddenly become rich with lots of cash. The real wealth we had was each other. Jesus said something about that, too: “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” Matthew 6:21. Our treasure is people. Susan, Ron, and the members of COSROW, the people who God has placed in my life, are the greater treasure.
That’s true in our churches, too. The real treasure is the people with whom we share our lives. As we go looking for more treasure, we need to look outside the church and get to know the people in our communities. You know, it is very possible that the people outside our churches have a misunderstanding about what the church is. With our love and care, we can help overcome that misunderstanding.
(And do thank Susan and Ron for keeping us organized.)
The other day, I stood on a dock at Blue Heron Lake and watched a man fishing. He was fishing for actual fish. He looked so calm. While I watched him, I realized my anxiety bucket was completely empty.
Cindy Hickman
The Rev. Cindy Hickman
The Rev. Cindy Hickman is a retired clergy member of the Iowa Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church.