BACK ON THE WAGON

Recently I fell off the wagon; or rather, my wagon hit several big potholes and bounced me out onto the trail. Talk about ruts. They remind me of a long-ago trip to Guernsey, Wyoming, to see a ridge on the North Platte River named The Wagon Ruts. So many pioneers traveling the Oregon Trail with their wagons and draft animals used the same sandstone track, they wore it down as much as five feet. (See video of ruts.)

If the trail deteriorated so badly, why did people keep using it? Because steep cliffs surround the river everywhere else. “The geography of the area dictated that practically every wagon that went west crossed the ridge in exactly the same place, with impressive results.” 

Over the years, in reaction to this and that event, my brain formed a geography that has seemed to dictate the direction of some of my thoughts. Often when I face a particularly challenging problem, or simply a perceived problem, down into anxiety’s grooves I fall. Cutting a new trail, a new attitude, on which to travel seems as unrealistic as hoisting a wagon and its ox team up a Platte River cliff.

I have been told it can be done, however. Enough desperation to want out of the mind’s potholes, good tools, and straightforward prayer can help pull the brain up to higher ground.

Long before self-help gurus touted positive thinking techniques, Desert Fathers worked on the thought life and passed along their tools. One such tool comes from St. Climacus. “Stand up against bad thoughts. [This situation] is exemplified by the one who said, “I will speak a word of contradiction to those who reproach me.” (The Ladder of Divine Ascent) Today we would call Climacus’ device to resist the gravity of self-defeating thoughts, “affirmations.”

After I fell off the wagon, I complained to my counselor, “I pray a lot during my times of stress, but I’m just as anxious as ever.” “Ah, but what kind of praying is it?” she asked with a sly grin. Red-faced, I realized what I was calling prayer was merely worrying out loud. The Saints have a way out of this rut, too.

They asked Abba Macarius (a Desert Father): How should we pray? The old man answered: A long speech is not necessary, but instead stretch out your hands and say, Lord, as you wish and as you know, have mercy. Yet if you feel a conflict is breaking out, you have to say, Lord, help! He knows what is good for us and treats us mercifully. (Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers)

I have collected some affirmations and prayers from a few of these spiritual pioneers. Every couple of days, I write an affirmation and a prayer on a sticky note and repeat them to cut new trails of trust and peace. When I slip back into the old ruts, they are there to help lift me. Higher ground. New trail. Back on the wagon.

AFFIRMATIONS

Today,

1. I am learning to be content. 
2. I am farming good thoughts. 
3. I walk before God in simplicity and not in speculation of the mind.
4. The Father is my hope, the Son is my refuge, the Holy Spirit is my shelter. 
5. To keep spiritual peace, I chase dejection away. 
6. I am a miracle of God’s goodness, wisdom, and omnipotence.
7. There is no moment when God’s mercy leaves me.

PRAYERS

Lord,

1. I trust you. 
2. Your will be done.
3. I am grateful. 
4. Send the vitality of your Spirit. 
5. Shine in my heart the sparkle of your gifts.
6. Expand and free my heart. 
7. Grant me unshakable peace.

CONCENTRATING THE HEART

I enjoy riding the mountain trails of Colorado although it bangs my body around and occasionally scares me. The grandeur in the high country is nothing less than a display of lavish beauty and stark ruggedness. Mt. Antero, at 14,269 feet, is one such extravagant example that my husband, Dennis, and I recently explored by his KTM motorcycle and my Polaris quad. Once we had arrived near that gusty, barren peak, we felt ourselves on another planet.

After bumping over a few miles of boulders and then a talus slope to the tree line, the way climbed over switchbacks sometimes reaching a 30-degree angle. I had to work deliberately not to panic. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught glimpses of what a riding buddy, Kent, calls a “cat walk.” This is trail slashed across the side of a mountain with a drop off for a shoulder. I did not dare look off the trail before me or I could center, that is, fixate, on the plunging edge and head straight for it.

Within a few hundred yards of the very top of Mt. Antero Dennis helped turn my quad around when it became obvious I was on the verge of overreaching my skill level. In the struggle to dodge large rocks amid slippery, chalky shale and dirt, I was making small mistakes and could not accelerate enough to keep the quad from dying or sliding backward. On an increasingly narrow, steep trail with a huge drop off…well, one cannot make too many mistakes.

Riding the Rockies by ATV has a way of clearing the head. All concerns but the immediate become peripheral. My job at hand is to keep the rubber side down. When my mind starts to wander, the trail rises to meet me in rather unpleasant ways. And I must look just far enough ahead to avoid upcoming obstacles, but not so far ahead that I lose sight of what I need to handle at the moment.

The holy Church Fathers had a theory about what clears the head, or as they put it, concentrates the heart. One of them, Isaac, a Syrian saint of the fifth century wrote,

Blessed is the person who knows his own weakness, because awareness of this becomes for him the foundation and beginning of all that is good and beautiful.

For whenever someone realizes…that he is truly…weak, then he draws in his soul from the diffuseness which dissipates knowledge, and he becomes all the more watchful of his soul…

But no one can perceive his weakness unless he has been remiss a little, has neglected some small thing, has been surrounded by trials…Only then, by comparing his own weakness, will he realize how great is the assistance that comes from God. When someone is aware that he is in need of divine help, he makes many prayers. And once he has made much supplication, his heart is humbled…

As long as the heart is not humbled, it cannot cease from wandering; for humility concentrates the heart.

Whether maneuvering high mountain trails over boulders, slippery shale and cliffs, or making a speech, interviewing for a job, encountering marriage or parenting problems, starting a new business, or admitting an addiction, all unsettling challenges have this in common. We need to concentrate our hearts in order to stay the course. And nothing clears the head like a good dose of humility.