The Lifelong Art of Letting Go - Lenten Musings

“All great spirituality is about letting go.” ~Richard RohrMy practice for the 40 days of Lent this year will be to blog on the topic of Letting Go. I’ve recently begun to ponder the long chain of letting go that has characterized my life and perhaps my Lenten musings will find a chord with others.I’ve been letting go of things my whole life. As a missionary kid, I moved, on average, every two years until I was 30. Every time we moved, I let go of stuff. I let go of toys, books, friends and everything familiar. I would normally just roll with it, excited about what was coming next and making the transition with little effort. But sometimes the letting go was more painful. I remember crying buckets driving away from my beloved boarding school friends as I left Guatemala bound for a public school in Texas. I was letting go of a dear group of friends and a wholesome, fun lifestyle. I had no idea what the future would hold. It turned out to hold some difficult relationships and the trajectory of my life changed. Later on in life, I would find that letting go of harmful relationships was a convoluted process   Then I became a mom, and it seemed that letting go of perfectionism, people-pleasing, fear and control became a daily effort. I still exhale deeply whenever I imagine the “could-have-been’s” or “could-be’s” of raising children.The image of letting go that speaks most clearly to me is the image of a trapeze artist who lets go of a trapeze and flies through the air, effortlessly grabbing the oncoming trapeze that is timed perfectly to intersect with his outstretched hands. It looks so beautiful, fluid, and…well… effortless. But it’s not! What I’ve discovered is, just like the trapeze artist, letting go, in the spiritual sense of the word, requires practice. Letting go is a lifelong practice. Each cycle of swing-release-fly-grab is carefully practiced over and over in order to look effortless, and in the process we learn. Sometimes we let go of an issue with confidence because we can see the good that is coming. We let go, fly and grab on to continue our journey. Other times, we let go with beating heart and sweaty palms, hoping the thing we perceive as simply an outline in the fog will come our way in the right timing. We slip off our trapeze, hold our breath and barely grab the next bar. And, sometimes, we let go and, failing to grab the next piece of the journey, feel the dizzying, disorienting fall that we hope will end with us on the safety net, dazed, but unharmed.Here’s the thing…there are many types of letting go and many layers of letting go, both of which drive us to climb back up the ladder and (once again) practice the lifelong art of letting go. I have no idea where these Lenten Musings will take me, but I am determined to keep practicing the art of letting go.Full Disclosure: After I had decided to focus on letting go for Lent, I joined my daughter to read Brene Brown’s book The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. I really had no idea what the book was about, but I laughed out loud on the plane when I opened the book a couple days ago and looked at the table of contents, which include such chapters as “Letting Go of Perfectionism” and “Letting Go of Comparison”! I will be using many of her thoughts as I blog through Lent.