I sat in the doctor’s office, my words jumping from subject to subject — the several ways our country has spun out of control, grief, worries over Bruce’s CT scan -- my ADHD bloomed like a garden full of spring bulbs. “You’re anxious,” she said. “You need to turn it off, take a break. Watching the news changes nothing but increases your anxiety.”
The last few years I became a political junkie because the national drama with Trump and now with Biden has been as engrossing as reality TV. There’s a reason why politics and junkie go together. Fear and outrage are addictive, spinning me into either long arguments on Facebook or imagined, frustrated replies. People don’t appreciate my rants. My mind became bloated with politics when there are other things to think about like mushrooms popping out of hard ag lime, the wonder they might be how the elm tree talks.
Through it all, I’ve wondered how best to respond. On Facebook, Father Kenneth Tanner offers some insights, “One is either immersed in hope, peace, patience, long-suffering, meekness, joy, charity, generosity, goodness, and so on, or one is immersed in scarcity, anxiety, fear, hatred, warmongering, factionalism, and xenophobia. You cannot be Christ to a dying generation and a dying cosmos unless you are a walking, talking tree of life, bearing fruit in season, with good food for everyone you encounter.”
A walking, talking tree of life bearing fruit for healing sounds good to me.
I’m Katie Andraski and that’s my perspective.
