SUNDAY SERMON: The Art of Letting Go
Lunar / Sun Day Sermon
The Art of Letting Go
Do you remember when you were little ... fighting with your neighborhood best buddy over a soon to be cherished trash-heap find? “Let go .. Its mine.” “No .. I saw it first, LET GO.” Two sets of grubby fingers steadfastly holding on without quarter ... “L-E-T G-O !!!” One quick release, and back you tumble square on your posterior, but you never lost grip. The battle won, the spoils going to the victor. You feel pleased, but your best buddy feels ... kinda empty, and perhaps kinda sad at their loss. ~sigh~
As an adult, that feeling of having to 'let go' still carries with it an emotion of emptiness, even deprivation. The act of letting go is still the same as when we were little kids, but now the stakes are higher.
Supposedly we have the ability to let go gracefully, an art that assuredly comes with maturity, or so it is believed. Maturity brings with it many tolerable qualities, or could it be that perhaps, it simply means that we are too tired to fight and 'letting go' is just a matter of giving up.
Letting go is actually an acquired art, not automatic; rather, an art that we must nurture and develop over time. Letting go ultimately gives us license for liberty – unhindered, unencumbered – free – with an incomparable joy that goes hand in hand with that freedom.
Empty-nesters know this feeling ... when the last child leaves the home and suddenly, its just you and the partner – no kids! A feeling of ambiguity creeps in -- on one hand there's the loss, yet on the other hand, there's a sense of new found freedom! And, as with the child who is out flying on their own, they too, feel the result of "letting go." They feel the loss of comfort and safety within the immediate family circle, yet they now have a sense of growth and a taste for freedom.
Letting go is tough for the parents and the child – but both survive and move on with joy, compassion and perhaps a new-found respect for each other's privacy.
No matter what it is that we find we must let go of, the bottom line is .... Trust. Take for instance Tommy and Mike who were having a great time exploring the “Indian trail,” a path that lead behind some houses and construction sites at the end of their neighborhood. Tommy walked across a plank of wood that spanned over an open pit. The plank snapped under his weight and down he went into the greasy mire below. Mike reached his arm down to help Tommy out, but couldn't get a good grip. Mike found a coil of water hose at one of the construction sites and 'borrowed' it. He lowered the hose down the pit and Tommy was able to climb out using the hose as leverage. Tommy had to initially “let go” of his friend's hand and “trust” that Mike would and could help him in another way. Mike had to “let go” of Tommy when he realized that his grip just wasn't strong enough to pull him out and had to trust his own judgment in finding something to help extract his friend. Both boys learned important lessons.
Surrendering our preconceived ideas and fears about 'letting go' does more than simply lift our confidence level a notch or two. It opens up a whole new world of simplicity – a world in which joy lives and flourishes. By letting go, emotionally, physically and spiritually, we remove the obstacles that prevent us from experiencing the wholeness that comes with truly living in the moment. We 'let go' of the past and 'trust' that everything we experience in this moment is precisely right. Now .. how hard is that? ~smile~
Everything we do in life is a choice, whether it is automatic or well thought out. We can choose to allow past experience and fear to hold us back from living a full life or ... we can “let go” and allow our consciousness to flow with the Universal Life Force, the All That Is. This is the ultimate freedom of choice.
"Some think it's holding on that makes one strong;
sometimes it's letting go." -- Sylvia Robinson
Be blessed ...
Dolphyn