The word of the day is “anxious.”  W. H. Auden published his Pulitzer-prize-winning poem, “The Age of Anxiety,” in 1947.  That title is still an apt description of our time, especially during these days of one crisis after another.  Psychology Today reports that anxiety levels in America are three times higher now than they were before the Covid-19 pandemic.  But anxiety is a product of the human condition and has been a factor of our human experience since the Fall.  We are fragile and vulnerable creatures who have built-in survival mechanisms.  These systems respond in body, mind, and soul to alarms of threats to our well-being, and we become anxious.

In our reading of Proverbs 12:23-13:9, the wise sage of Proverbs makes a seemingly simple observation about pervasive worry:  “Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad” (NKJV 12).  This saying may sound superficial.  However, if we reflect on this comment, we can learn from ancient wisdom what anxiety does to the soul and how it is relieved.

Anxiety Puts Us Down

The Hebrew word for anxiety refers to concern and fear, but the term has a sense of heaviness (Strong’s Hebrew #1674, 59).  Our proverb amplifies this sense of being downcast when it says that anxiety in the heart is depressive.  The Hebrew word means “bowed down” as one bows down before a magistrate (Strong’s Hebrew #7812, 275).  But here, the term suggests that worldly cares bow us to the ground.  They put us flat on our backs.

We are accustomed to associating anxiety with temporary concerns.  But the sage of Proverbs observes that anxiety becomes a heavy burden if it persists, weighing us down with worry.  And constant worry leads to oppressive thoughts of sadness, doom, and futility.  In this way, anxiety leads to depression.  We all worry at times, but when worry controls our thoughts, it soon wears us out so that we have no more energy left.

A Good Word Lifts Us Up

With this in mind, we can appreciate the tonic that the sage advises for the anxious.  He writes, “…but a good word makes it glad” (NKJV vs. 25).  The Hebrew word for “good” conveys the sense of a pleasant and pleasing, even delightful word (Strong’s Hebrew #2896, 103).  It is an expression that lifts the heart.  A kind and understanding word shares the burden of concern that weighs so heavily on the anxious.  It is a breath of fresh air in the staleness of dreary sadness.

This Sunday, we will commemorate St. John Climacus (579) –649 AD).  In his Ladder of Divine Ascent, St. John wrote: “Fear is danger tasted in advance, a quiver in the heart takes flight before the unnamed calamity.  Fear is a loss of assurance” (John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent.  Step 21. Paulist Pres. 1988).

Why a Good Word is Uplifting

St. John might as well have spoken about anxiety, for anxiety is the anticipation of danger.  Moreover, the anxious mood is a general foreboding that the person feels rather than is able to describe.  Thus, St. John explains why a good word is so uplifting to those who worry.  This message makes those who worry “glad” because it is a word of assurance.  It is the thought that whatever the danger is, it can be overcome, and if not, it can be endured.  Yet anxious people cannot find this understanding in themselves.  This insight must be spoken to them.  But once heard, it alleviates the worry.

For Reflection

Echoing the words of the Lord in the Sermon on the Mount (Luke 1222-31, St. Porphyrios wrote:

“We live as if we were completely insensitive to the magnificence of God’s providence’’ (Porphyrios, 2005, 193).

He continues, “All things are under God’s providence.  How many pine needles does each pine tree have?  Can you count them?  God, however, knows them, and without His will, not one falls to the ground.  Just as with the hairs on our heads, they are all numbered.  He provides for the smallest details of our life: He loves us and protects us” (Porphyrios 2005, 193).

In our cynical age, these words may seem naïve and foolish.  But remember that God’s wisdom is foolishness to the world.  In that light, we might ask ourselves, how do the pleasant words of  St. Porphyrios address the anxiety of our present age?  How do they give the assurance that lifts us up from the oppression of worry and care?

Works Cited

Porphyrios, St. 2005. Wounded by Love: the Life and the Wisdom of Saint Porphyrios. Translated by John Raffan. Limni, Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey, Publisher.