Anxiety and Resurrection

June 06, 2012 by Rosalynde Welch

Continued from Page 1

Is there a resurrection from the death of anxiety? Yes, Miller says. Resurrection is a reuniting of the spirit with the body, and thus to revive oneself from the mental splitting of anxiety is simply to return one's attention to one's body in the present moment. He writes:

To foreground the present moment is, first and foremost, to foreground the depth, breadth, and complexity of our embodiment, our sensations, our groundedness in the flesh. It is to feel the breath in one's lungs, the blood in one's veins, the light in one's eyes, the rushing of a mighty wind in one's ears. ... This Spirit-worked reunion with one's body in the everlasting fire of the present moment is the essence of resurrection.

Anxiety is death; resurrection is presence. By consciously returning my mind to the given grace of the present, I bring my spirit back into union with my body. I'm alive again; I belong to my life again. Just as I practice repentance a hundred times a day, spiritually enacting my ultimate reunion with God, I can practice resurrection a hundred times a day, spiritually enacting an ultimate reunion of spirit with body. Anxiety is death; resurrection is presence.

Thinking about my experiences with post-partum anxiety in this light has allowed me to make spiritual sense of those dark months in a way that had eluded me before, and it has given me a spiritual practice for escaping the darkness if it should descend again. The best theology doesn't always make the best therapy; I found in Miller's essay a happy exception to that rule. As he would put it, "Nothing could be more merciful."

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Mormon

Salt and Seed

Anxiety

Resurrection

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About Rosalynde Welch

Rosalynde Welch is an independent scholar who makes her home in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and four children.

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