Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
THE CHRONICLE
March 14, 2004
Vol. 49, No. 11
Good Stress
The following quotation comes from the Very Rev. John Ross, Dean of St.
John’s
Cathedral, Knoxville, TN.
Dr. Hans Selye, an historian/psychologist/socialogist wrote an
important book in the late 50’s titled The Stress of Life.
In the book he made a distinction between the kinds of stress we experience
in
our life: the first he
called distress. We all know too much about that category: too
much to do, too little time; fast food, poor diets; the need for intimacy,
barely enough time to say
goodbye and hello. Selye also identified what he termed eustress
(eu=good). These are the stresses of life which help us grow, expand
our horizons, and be engaged with life: the birth of a child; getting
married; a hard job which doesn’t
simply tear us down, but also leaves us with that feeling of a “job
well done.”
Another
writer, the Rev. John Sanford in his book The Sayings of
Jesus points out that an active Christian lives
with a certain stress and anxiety by virtue of that vocation:
Anxiety
is inevitable for those who enter into the kingdom. There is
of course such a thing as sick anxiety, the sign of pathologically
disturbed personality. But there is also divine anxiety,
the anxiety which is inevitable because entering the kingdom
calls for the individual to differentiate himself from the group,
accepting the consequences and responsibilities of choice.
It
is an anxiety which comes from being able to choose the
road less traveled, the ethic harder to fulfill, the life
harder to reconcile with
the world. The bottom line: being a Christian can
be stressful. It sounds like a warning from the surgeon general.
Here
in mid-Lent, with spring ready to burst forth, I believe
that faith can be eustress. What better life than one lived
in Christ? To quote an old hymn, “Blessed
Assurance Jesus is Mine.” Maybe some
of the stress too is the struggle with the imperfection
of our faith.
May
God bless us on our journey.
George Yandell
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