The Surrendered Life

Something beautiful happens when we forget. When we jump in. When we stop thinking about something and start doing it. Enjoying a “moment” like this, it turns out, may be one of the hardest things in the world to do. There is a lot that goes into it.

For the moment is not ours. Not any moment. We are not the keeper of moments. We are not even able to make them happen. We can not even keep them while we are having them. We can only experience them as the free and unbound gift they are.

Trying to maintain moments leads to a sort of dependency on having them. The fear of losing them can only make it worse. To avoid such emotional hassle, some distance themselves from moments altogether. They constrict all moments into the rational.        

They reduce them in order to control them. But this leads to another dependency: control. Let the pendulum swing. Thankfully these extremes are not the only choices. Such a dichotomy between control and experience need not exist.

We can learn to live a well-ordered and surrendered life. It is possible. Yes, we try and we work hard. But we hold everything loosely. Mostly ourselves. We realize all is Gift.  Whether we have success in this or that, or screw things up, we are on a path.

We learn. We grow. We manage. We walk. And God makes things grow. God does. And He brings to light new realities, ones we didn’t even know existed. He brings disparate pieces together in ways we could not have imagined. We just let go.

As we do so we are given the immense power of life, not to control or wield it to our own pleasure. But to enjoy it! The universe begins to open up for us. Things do start to align. A way is opened that was not there before. Only as we keep it loose.

Keep it loose. Your grip. Let up. The tighter you hold the less you can keep. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s not yours anyway. None of it is yours. You will come and go. What will remain? Only the Life we held loosely while we were here.       

Life has its own will. We get to negotiate. But at the end of the day its will is stronger. And its will is larger than ours. It includes things we can not even think about or imagine (things “too great” for mere mortals). Some call it the Spirit of history itself.

Basically it is the story of what actually happens. Lots of things could have happened. But only certain things did. Those things that did happen, happened for some reason.

Even the ancients knew there was something to it. There is something to the fact that some things happen and not others. Some Will was behind the things that happened.

Life does not owe us any explanations. The brute force of nature need not seek our permission first. It simply is. And once we understand and respect that, we somehow get into the is-ness of life and get to experience the sacred, simple joy of existing.