The Gift of Letting Go

Text: Deuteronomy 34:4-10; Matthew 22:36-40

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely,

without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go.

She let go of all the memories that held her back.

She let go of all the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it…...She just let go.

https://safire-rose.com/books-and-media/poetry/she-let-go

This poem, She Let Go, written by Safire Rose, came to me when I was having a hard time letting go. Letting go sounds simple but not easy. I asked myself why I was holding on to certain things while letting go of other things. Deep down, I discovered my desire to change my circumstances, I was trying to change what I could not change: other people, things that already happened, and things I was not in control of. The more I am attached to certain things the harder it becomes to let go. What makes letting go difficult is the fact that I still care and love whether it is about people, places, or ability to do certain things. So, before trying to let go, I must acknowledge my relationship to each of them, and express my gratitude for what each has brought to my life. What is equally important to do is to give myself permission to grieve as fully as possible for their absence. Then, perhaps miraculously but naturally the gift of letting go can find me despite my inability to let go.

Preparing for this service, I was juggling between the passage in Deuteronomy and the Gospel reading to decide which passage I would go with. One passage talks about a loss – the death of Moses, how his journey on earth ended and what followed - and the other passage talks about love – loving God, and loving neighbours as ourselves. It seemed to me that neither passage would make sense without the help from the other. Putting the two passages together, we can understand the complexity of life better. Love and loss live side-by-side from the beginning to the ending. The challenge is that most of the time we feel one way or the other. When loss is so present in our lives, we experience the absence of love. And when love is present in our lives, we experience the absence of loss. The truth is that no one can grieve what they have not loved, and nobody can genuinely love without experiencing loss. Letting go can bring our experiences of love and loss together.

Having moved many times in my life I have been forced to let go of so many places. Since our wedding 15 years ago, Ha Na and I had to change our address ten times before moving to Winnipeg. Moving was an annual event, and we were basically on the way until we knew where to go next. Though we enjoyed certain places more than the others, letting go was not hard because we were not necessarily attached to the geographic locations; we were busy carving out our future. The loss of one place brought forth the love of a new place. Now that we have found the house we really like, and have made Winnipeg our new home, I don’t think we can easily let go of what we have now. The more I love the harder it is to let go.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, we have been forced to let go of so many things: social interaction, getting together, trips we were planning and waiting for, dining out, or personal contact like handshakes or hugs. As a church we had to let go of many things: in-person worship services, singing together, funerals for some of our beloved members, major fundraising events that could bring community together, our famous community BBQ, and the various groups with whom we happily share our space. It was not easy to let go of any of this. We experienced a collective grief for all the things we had to let go and continue to learn to let go. The flipside of our grief is our love and care, which we can celebrate even as we experience loss.

Everyone needs love, and that is not just a cliché. Love is what moves us, connects us, and makes us feel alive. It makes you get out of your bed every morning, make some coffee or tea. It makes you put yourself out there and do your part to make the world a better place than when you first arrived. It makes you pray for someone you barely know. It makes you listen and speak even when it is hard to do so. Love is like gravity, making us grounded and humble, constantly pulling our paths toward where it wants us to go.

According to Gary Chapman, there are five ways to express and experience love. He calls these ways “love languages”. (https://www.5lovelanguages.com/5-love-languages) These five languages are acts of service, gift-giving, physical touch, quality time, and words of affirmation. One way to find out what your primary love language is to observe not only the way you express love to others but also what you complain about. Where it hurts most is also what you are most capable of giving. Taking Chapman’s framework into our relationship with the world, we can have a better understanding of why these times are challenging. If how we live in the world is how we express our love for the world, we now have extremely limited ways of doing that. Acts of service, gift-giving, physical touch, and quality time are not permissible. What’s left is words of affirmation through phone calls, emails, virtual communication or sending cards. Unless that is your primary love language, you would have a hard time expressing or experiencing love.

One of important things about our church is the ministry of the space. We express and experience love through the space. It brings everyone together. Various people both from the congregation and the wider community come and make meaningful connections in the space of Fort Garry United as a form of love. Can we let go of that love language for now and find new ways of expressing our love? No matter what path we choose, we can celebrate the love we all share even in the midst of grief. And we can give ourselves permission to feel what we are going through. Who knows? Then miraculously yet naturally the gift of letting go can find us and lead us to where we have never been before. I’d like to end my reflection with the second half of the poem, She Let Go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…