This tough truth is about letting go. It highlights what Jesus taught: If anyone would come after me, let them deny themselves, take up their cross daily and follow me. Whoever would save their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit to gain the whole world but lose yourself?[1]
Letting go is a fundamental rhythm of Christian discipleship. It is the opposite of clinging to the familiar, being afraid of change, opting always for safety. One way Paul expresses this is in Philippians 3:13-14… and he links willingness to let go with maturity (v.15). Other faiths understand this too, expressing it in their own terms. Life itself, with or without religious faith, requires or at least invites us to let go in numerous ways… Letting go of youth is something some people find hard, evidently. Letting go in bereavement is specially hard. Parents must let go of sons and daughters. Letting go of good health, of a friendship, of power and responsibility… Brought up in the church perhaps? Then it may be letting go of inadequate childhood religion[2], of distorted acquired notions of God… Letting go of resentments and the poison of the past… Eventually we let go of life.
Any letting go can be difficult, even frightening. But letting go is a major daily task of the journey of meditation, contemplative life and prayer. On this road we are learning the value of non-possessiveness, of interior and of outer renunciation, writes Fr Laurence Freeman. Typically however, we find it happening in us anyway… looking back we see how previously intractable things have shifted, along the road. We have been letting go of images of self; learning to sit lighter to our desires and plans, to possessions, to fond illusions, to reliance on ownership and control. These issues are seeming not as important as they once were. We are learning how love is actually not love if it clings, possesses, controls.
It is the rhythm of a simple daily discipline of silence and stillness, faithfully and gently letting go and returning to the mantra on becoming aware that we are straying into thought and planning, remembering, imagining… This prayer is a sustained Yes to God rather than always to me and my needs, my life, my hopes and concerns – because, essentially, it is not about me. We have always taught about contemplative life and prayer that if you want to know what’s in it for me, you’re missing the point. The real question is, do I find I am becoming more loving, less fearful, more available, less judgemental, more forgiving, less resentful… These are not changes I can achieve. They are what the Spirit of the Risen Christ will do in me as I make space and time. It is not about me… We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. (Romans 14:7-8)
Fr Richard Rohr writes: All the truly transformed people I have ever met are characterized by what I would call radical humility. They are deeply convinced that they are drawing from another source; they are simply an instrument. Their genius is not their own; it is borrowed. They end up doing generative and expansive things precisely because they do not take first or final responsibility for their gift; they don’t worry too much about their failures, nor do they need to promote themselves. Their life is not their own, yet at some level they know that it has been given to them as a sacred trust. Such people just live in gratitude and confidence and try to let the flow continue through them. They know that love can be repaid by love alone.
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