liturgy: where does my help come from?
A liturgy for overwork and exhaustion.
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There’s a part of me who can create energy from nowhere.
Ex nihilo, like a little god.
She can create something out of nothing.
She works overtime, waking up early and staying up late, multitasking, forgetting to eat or sleep.
She can make dreams come true – she has made dreams come true.
But when this part of me is anxious, she’s also completely exhausting.
She believes that if she just works hard enough, she can cram three lives into one and she never has to make any difficult decisions about what to prioritize.
She never has to face her finitude.
She never has to face how devastatingly short and out of our control life really is.
So she fixates and locks in for hours at a time and snaps at anything that slows her down.
As my grad school graduation approaches and the state of the world feels increasingly bleak, I notice this part showing up more and more.
I’ve been reading Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, and his words are sober and clarifying:
“We recoil from the notion that this is it — that this life, with all its flaws and inescapable vulnerabilities, its extreme brevity, and our limited influence over how it unfolds, is the only one we’ll get a shot at. Instead, we mentally fight against the way things are — so that, in the words of the psychotherapist Bruce Tift, ‘we don’t have to consciously participate in what its like to feel claustrophobic, imprisoned, powerless, and constrained by reality.’”
So we (okay, I) work and work in the hopes of avoiding reality. We work ourselves to exhaustion to avoid having to choose what to spend our time on. We over-plan to feel a sense of certainty about how our lives will go.
But as long as we’re working ourselves to death, we’re also missing out on our actual lives.
If you’ve found yourself in a similar place — overworking and stretching and straining to fit multiple lives into your beautiful, finite life — let’s spend a moment together.
If you’re able, do something to open the space. This may be as simple as shutting the door to the room you’re in, or sitting in a particular chair, or turning on some soft instrumental music, or lighting a candle. This can help settle our brains and bodies by signaling that this is protected time, set aside for a particular purpose.
Opening.
Take a few deep breaths.
Arrive.
Try to notice everything that is holding you.
How your chair is holding you. How the room is holding you. How your life is holding you.
Reflection.
Spend a moment in journaling or prayer. In whatever language feels right, what is the focus of your overwork? What are you chasing? How is it feeling? In all this overwork, is there an emotion you’re trying to avoid?
Be honest about whatever feelings come up for you — exhaustion, frustration, grief, anger, or something else entirely. Let your feelings arrive, and try to sit with them without fixing or changing them. You can handle your big feelings. The Divine can handle them, too.
Read the opening scripture.
Psalm 121
I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
indeed, he who watches over the people
will neither slumber nor sleep.The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore.
Take a moment to reflect or journal on one or more of the following prompts:
Did any particular word or phrase in the passage stand out to you? What might the Spirit be calling you to notice?
Take a look at the line: “Where does my help come from?” This question is a challenge to me because of how often my answer, deep down, is, “My help will come from my own ability to outwork and outsmart.” In this moment of your life, how might you answer that question?
Think of a beautiful relationship in your life. Make a list (in your mind or in a journal) of everything that needed to happen along the way to make that first encounter possible – particularly things that were outside of your control. Give thanks for each surprise, stroke of luck, and chance encounter as a gift from the Divine.
Take a moment with the line: “He who keeps the people will neither slumber nor sleep.” What does it mean to you that the Divine is continuously working on your behalf? How does that feel?
What might it look like to cultivate a sense of trust and gratitude in the provision of the Divine in the coming weeks and months?
What truth or wisdom is revealing itself to you?
Prayer of thanksgiving.
To the one who holds us in love,
Give us eyes to see the mysterious underground work, the Divine weaving,
Required to make every small beauty in our lives possible.
Shake from us the belief that we are alone in our lives,
And may we remember that the Divine is working tirelessly for our good.
Help us to know when to lean in – when to work hard, when to show up.
Help us to know when to lean back – when to rest and trust that you are at work.
Teach us how to hold our lives loosely.
May our hearts be filled with gratitude,
May our minds be at rest,
And may our lives be a resting place for others.
Amen.
Closing.
Before closing your time, take a moment to give thanks for the fullness of this one, singular moment of your life.
Repeat these words:
This is my life.
This is a moment of my life.
(I’ve been using these words as a mini centering practice throughout the day.)
Express gratitude for the gift of this moment.
Spend as much time here as you need to seal in your practice.
Go in peace, my friends.
Thin Space Cowboy is a reader-supported publication written and created by Lindsey Kelley. Click here to subscribe or gift a friend a subscription here (if a friend sent you this email—tell them thank you!). Have questions? Requests? Reply to this email to reach me directly!
This is an incredible, thought-provoking, and insightful article. I appreciate you sharing this profound wisdom!