It used to be that talking to oneself was a sign of madness. When you saw someone walking down the street in a conversation all alone, you usually steered a wider berth around that person. Nowadays, you just don’t know. You come across someone actively engaged in conversation with apparently no-one until you realize they have a Star Trek like device hanging off their ear and discover they are simply in a cell phone stupor – the wonders of Bluetooth technology.

Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Eternal Now” and “A New Earth” posits the question, “Aren’t we really all talking to ourselves, just not out loud?” And he wonders, doesn’t that make us just as crazy? Think about it. What’s going on in your daily internal dialogue? He talks about being a young graduate student and following a woman who he’d seen regularly talking to herself on the bus. They ended up going to the same library. He wondered how someone “like that” could be educated, a professor perhaps, until he stopped off in the bathroom and it dawned on him – his inner dialogue was little different. We all get trapped, he observed, by our mind’s chatter. It’s just a matter of degrees as to how we can control it. . (A New Earth, pp.30-34)

Though this contemporary spiritual author may speak to us where we are in 2008, he’s not the first spiritual leader to observe the destructive nature of human anxiety. Jesus simply tells us – “Don’t worry.” It seems simple, right? Just don’t do it. “Don’t worry about food. Don’t worry about clothing. Don’t worry about your paycheck. Don’t worry about how others see you. Don’t worry about your future. Don’t worry about your past.” But we don’t listen.

Legomai ego. I talk to myself. I suspect you talk to yourself. And if you’re anything like any of your peers in today’s changing landscape – that inner conversation is fraught with worry. We modern humans can get worked up about the tiniest of details, can’t we? We not only care about what we eat and what we wear, we care about whether the service was good enough for a 20% tip or a mere 15% or if the blouse we bought last week will go on sale this week. We schedule our calendars down to the last minute to make sure we’re not missing any important details like picking up the dry cleaning. We brag about our long hours at work, not because we love our jobs, but because we worry if we’re going to make the right impression as a capable human being. We not only worry about tomorrow, we are obligated to make provisions for tomorrow by carrying health insurance, life insurance, car insurance, and the insurance business has turned a high profit from our sense of doom.

This obsessive thinking and talking to ourselves is not at all productive. It may help us tackle a few items on our to-do list – but it has no spiritual virtue whatsoever. As Jesus puts it, “Who, by worrying, has ever added a day to their lives?” In fact, anxiety and stress are health hazards. Heart disease, cancer, and a whole host of chronic conditions are linked to, guess what, worry! Jesus says, “Don’t worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will bring enough worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

What a radical concept! Focus on today. Live for right now – this moment. Don’t wish away your life wanting tomorrow to come because it’s a Monday off. And don’t fret about what could arrive in your email on Tuesday morning. It isn’t worth it. As Eckhart Tolle explains it, one can only live in the present. You can’t live in the past or in the future – only now. But how much of our “now” do we spend trying to live in a time that currently is not?

For me, this revelation about living for this moment, the one right now, has been an eye-opener. I’ve loved the “Don’t worry” passage from scripture forever. But I admit it – my inner voice has a big mouth and worries about everything. But that voice is not God’s voice. It isn’t even my own true voice. My true voice is compassionate, curious, and able to be still when that other voice, the one with the constant critique and never-ending to-do list can shut up for a few seconds or longer.

Jesus says, “Strive first for the kingdom of God.” The kingdom of God is not just a reality in heaven to be granted in some great eternal sometime. The kingdom of God is at hand, right now. God knows our needs and will fulfill them. How little do we trust God to feed us and clothe us and know our needs at least at the level of birds or flowers! Perhaps that’s why the poor are blessed. They learn this trust in a way that those of us with much seem to miss.

The Isaiah text also reminds us of who God is when our incessant monkey brains kick in with their “woe is me” talk. Zion starts to worry about God’s care and compassion saying, “The Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me.” Not so. The prophet sees the anxiety of the people and responds to it not with greater anxiety, but by reminding them of God’s steadfast love. He speaks for God, saying, “Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget.”

Having a small child myself, I know what aching love comes with care for one’s offspring, yet, God’s love is greater than this. Even mothers, even parents forget. We humans can go far out of kilter in our relationships – both with God and each other. Worry breeds mistrust. When we are anxious about our lives, we leave little room for seeing just how bountifully God provides for us. When we worry we don’t add anything to who we are, in fact enough worry, and we’re the woman talking to herself on the bus.

Don’t worry. Period. Live for today. It’s not just a life lesson for the young people we acknowledge as starting a new part of their journey after graduation. It’s not just a reminder for their parents to lighten up a bit when they are out on their own. It’s for all of us. It’s a reminder to be more trusting of God and more gentle with one another. I’ll probably still talk to myself, but I hope that instead of what usually goes on inside my head, I can have more awareness, more amazement, and more wonder. I pray that I can be in the moment of right now. I pray that for me and for you.

Bob Marley sings a fantastic song that you’ll hear at the close of worship about three little birds who land within his view and tell him, “Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing’s gonna be alright.” Listen. Like a nursing mother, God will not forget. We aren’t the one’s holding the world together. We can let go. The world will not stop revolving. Our worry does absolutely nothing. Our trust in God is what creates the possibility for anything. Let go. Let God.

Amen.