We’ve been looking at the world atlas this week; the seven-year-old has been particularly obsessed with the map that identifies the richest and poorest countries. Then last night he said, “I need to look at the atlas again. I need to see something about Japan.”

“Why Japan?” I asked.

“Do you remember about the bomb?” he asked.

And then I remembered that he’s been worried about nuclear war, though he hasn’t raised the issue lately. Someone at school had told him that North Korea was going to nuke Washington, DC, in the way that older elementary school kids love a good scare. I had told him that wouldn’t happen, that North Korea had no hope of sending a bomb that far, and then I’d said it might hit Japan, or the ocean.

He opened the atlas, and I pointed out Japan. “Oh good. They’re one of the richest countries,” he said. “That means they can move, and they’ll be safe.”

I didn’t bother to point out the flaws in this plan, since I am kind like that. Instead I felt brokenhearted that though he doesn’t speak of it much, my second grader is carrying around a worry about nuclear war. And I also felt kind of astonished, that in that worry, he was devising a strategy for the people in harm’s way to escape.

I also couldn’t help but think of Jesus saying, “Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” … Since the seven-year-old is unable to do the very small thing of adding an hour to his life, then he should likely take nuclear war and escape plans off his list of worries and just enjoy playing kickball and Breath of the Wild. But he’ll probably go on worrying, as most of us do.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea that Anne Lamott talks about in Bird by Bird (and elsewhere): we all have our own emotional acre to tend. It’s like a little patch of land, this interior life of yours, and you can do whatever you want with it. You can make it beautiful or you can let it be a junkyard. It’s totally up to you. Your acre has a fence and a gate, and it’s up to you who gets to come in and be a part of your emotional acre, and you’re free to show people the gate.

Sometimes I think we can get caught up in trying to tend someone else’s emotional acre. That’s codependency, and for some of us, it’s a lifelong task to learn to keep to our own acre and let others do the work of tending theirs. But I think worry is a bit like codependency. Most of my worries are as far above my pay grade as nuclear war is above my second grader’s.  It’s not my acre to tend. I should stick to my little plot of land and let God tend the universe.