A friend reminded me tonight that one of the great tenets of spirituality, an element of almost every great spiritual teacher or faith, is the idea of letting go. It is a difficult thing to do, I’m not sure it is a natural human behavior, but it has become a cornerstone element in my own faith, my own life.

It is the nature of life to lose things – people, friends, dreams, family, parents,  faith, animals, ambitions, expectations. Life is a stream of losses, it seems, and a central element of faith is how we learn to respond to them.

I have learned that most people cannot let go, perhaps do not want to, have not seen it done, do not know how to do it. I sympathize, it is not an easy thing to do.

I am learning to let go, I have been working at it all of my life, especially, I think, since the Quakers took me in and taught me to celebrate what I had, not what I had lost. Ideas are funny, some of the slide right over us, some of them stick. That one stuck, and has grown and deepened.

I have let go of my mistakes and my misconceptions, of the harm I have done to myself and to others, of much of the fear that shaped and affected so much of my life for so long. I let go of a marriage to a good person that had lasted for more than three decades, I let go of friends, a way of life, a view of the world, struggles with my family, an addiction to drugs,  of my ambitions and my delusions and my unhappiness and much of my anger.

Alcoholics Anonymous asks people in recovery to make amends for their behavior, to find the people they have wronged and apologize to them. I do not wish to apologize to anyone for the mistakes I have made or the harm I have done. Like my parents and almost every other whole human being I know, I did the best I could for as long as I could. And when I couldn’t function any more, I surrendered – just like they each in AA – to powers that were higher than me, even if I have no idea who and what they are. I accepted the hard truth about myself and resolved to change, and am changing still.

If letting go is hard, changing is harder. People who truly change are a small and exclusive club, the hardy and the blessed.

Life asks us at some point to decide if we wish to move forward or if wish to stay where we are, to look back and cling to our stories of struggle and lament, to our grievances and disappointments, to the things we should have done, or wish we had done. We have so little time to learn  how to be authentic and change, I am sure I will use it all up before I become the human being I wish to be.

Let it go, I tell myself every day, when I slip or stumble, as human beings will unfailing do. I have learned how to let go, to shed the burdens of the past, of looking back, of the old days and betters ways, of the slights and cuts and hurts, of the way things used to be, or the way things should have been. Let it go, let it go.

I have learned much on my hero journey, have so much more to learn. I have learned to live anew every single day, to get up in the morning to think of what I have, not what I do not have. There is a lightness to spirituality, a sense of traveling, I feel on good days like one of those beautiful old fading schooners, sails out, pennants flapping,  picking up a fresh and steady wind, letting go of the land and the lines that tied me to the shore. Life is an opportunity, every single day, and I am called upon to make the very best of it that I can.

Every day, a new horizon, just ahead of me