Liturgy of the Hours

This week's question is about letting go. And I had to give it some thought.

My basic belief is that letting go is an organic process. Given that one statement, you probably won't even need to bother reading the rest of the post.

But...

Western culture, the culture I grew up in, attaches a lot of "shoulds" and time frames on letting go of things in our lives. Time becomes an enemy that chews us up and spits us out. It is about productivity over process.

The eastern perspective is a bit different. It views time as a gift and seeks to put it to good use rather than our being used up by it. There is time for everything. Time for the things that matter to us. Time for growth, prayer, reflection. I read in a book one time, and this stuck with me, that "You never finish anything in life and while that's humbling and frustrating, it's alright."

When the world is viewed as impermanent, all circumstances as impermanent, it becomes both easier and harder to let go of things. When we know something truly isn't coming back, there is no revisiting, it's a temptation to hold on.

And that's okay, too.

When we are ready, when we've gleaned all we can from an experience, we let it go. When it no longer serves us, truly no longer serves us, it drops off like a leaf from a tree.

Think about it. I'll bet you'll see exactly what I mean.

The concept of impermanence came easily to me. I don't always like it. Sometimes I fight against it. But I do understand it.

I come from a background filled with abandonment. I was unable to depend on anything today that would still be here tomorrow. I learned to never trust anything I didn't control.

And I created abandonment over and over again because we do that. We humans do that. Until we resolve a situation, one way or another, we will unconsciously re-create it.

So.. how did abandonment serve me?

It served me by allowing me to live a carefree life with no responsibilities to anyone or anything. Things came in and things went out. I was like the stoic observer, watching the river flow. It allowed me to be unhealthily detached from everyone and everything.

No expectations, no disappointments.

After a while, that became my motto in life. No expectations, no disappointments.

And it worked. It really worked.

Then the hollowness crept in. The sense of disconnectedness crept in when I looked around and realized my life was completely empty. I had to start doing things differently.

It meant a willingness to not let go. Whew! That was a hard one.

There was no timetable on it. There was no ritualized process. It was nothing someone else could do for me. It required little external guidance. It required internal willingness.

I'd come to a point where that way of life no longer served me.

It seemed to take care of itself as I took the risks necessary to allow a little bit of attachment into my life. Balanced. Balanced with the understanding that everything is impermanent.

So we become a kind of portal for life experience. In all of nature, everything recycles, including people. Loss, grief, the cycle of life itself.

As we begin to flow with that, we let go. We let go of the belief that we can control how the river flows. Because, after all, we can't.

We can be thankful for our life experiences or we can be resentful. That's a choice, both of them equally valid for different reasons. We can cling and make ourselves miserable. Sometimes that is what we need to do.

And when it no longer serves us, we let it go.


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