Surrender

Today I want to return to the basics and talk about a classic spiritual-religious topic – surrender.

In spiritual-religious circles, the concept of surrender is treated differently from how it’s treated in war. The surrender I’m talking about here is not a synonym for “losing.” Surrender means we are willing to stop trying to control the whole world. Surrendering involves letting go of the misguided belief that we’re the ones driving the ship. It also requires releasing the proverbial steering wheel, standing up, and sitting somewhere else.

But how? How can we relinquish our desire for control? After all, it seems to be a basic, biological instinct.

We love control. We love it. We love it.

If you’re like me, you might even believe you possess a magical super power that enables you to control almost everything. Even though you know this is not true, you still sometimes believe it. How do you know if you have this somewhat delusional thinking? It’s simple: do you get upset when you discover there are things are outside of your range of influence?

The great serenity prayer says, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

While not all of us seem to always have or act on this wisdom, at least most of us have heard its voice whispering good advice to us. The key is listening to and acting on it.

Case in point – my father’s health. I know I can’t do anything to save his health. Even though we had a beautiful, heart-to-heart conversation yesterday, the fact remains that I can’t get my father’s body to reverse certain deteriorating processes, and I can’t get him to take any better care of himself than he can. Both parts of the previous sentence are significant. I have neither the magic ability to get his body to spontaneously heal nor the ability to force him to do anything more that he can do.

We often think we can get people to do more than they can do.

I must surrender. If I don’t, I’ll continue driving myself (and probably my family) nuts by trying to control that which I can’t control.

I must cultivate in myself “wisdom to know the difference” between what I can and can’t control. Intellectually, I know which things are in my bailiwick and which aren’t. I just need to act on this knowledge. I must release my illusion of control, my fantasy of possessing a super power over the world.

Recently I heard someone say, “You either let go or you get dragged.” What a great quote. Let go or be dragged. When we let go, we find a new sense of freedom. We feel liberated – unlike when we’re busy clinging to something we’re powerless to change.

Somebody else gave me this image: Imagine you let go of a balloon, yet you step on the string with your foot so the balloon doesn’t fly off. What’s the point of letting go if you’re not really letting go?

Now think about your own life. Consider the things you know you ought not to be stressing over. Maybe there’s something or someone driving you nuts, but you keep trying to change it all. You know what I’m talking about – that thing in your life.

How can you let go of it? Picture yourself washing your hands of it, or throwing your hands in the air, finally being free of it.

You work on letting go of yours, and I’ll work on letting go of mine.

Spiritual-religious advice: Surrender!

LCK - Speaking and Listening

Generally speaking, Lord, I think women talk more than men.

It seems to me that in everyday social interaction that women tend to talk more and men tend to listen more. I am not making any judgment about this interesting difference but I can see where this inclination and practice on the part of men and women could become a source of real frustration for them both. I can imagine a woman wishing a man would open up and talk more and her man wishing that she would talk less and just listen to his words sometimes spoken in muted silence.

It is not an easy thing, O Lord, to always know when to speak and when not to. I am sure you have that problem with all of us from time to time. I suppose there are times when you might want us to just keep quiet and listen and other times, of course, when your heart aches for us to open up and speak truthful words to you.

I can speak and I can listen, dear God, but I am not always very good at knowing when to open my mouth and when to keep it closed. Help me to have a better sense of timing. I certainly don't want to be guilty of keeping my mouth shut when the right word could make a difficult situation better. Nor do I want to be guilty of covering an important quiet listening moment with unimportant blabbing that keeps me from hearing what I should hear.

LCK - Being Generous With My Praise

Dear God, we speak so many wonderful words about others at funerals. Why is it that we do not speak these same wonderful words to one another daily when they can be heard and appreciated?

I have witnessed the difference a timely word of praise can make in the life of a person who does not feel very worthwhile and who may doubt whether their contributions to life are of any real importance or significance to anyone. I have seen how people can come to life again as a result of one sincere and well-placed compliment given to them or a timely word of appreciation spoken for the smallest thing they might have done for someone else.

Words!

Life-giving, mood-enhancing words.

How easy it actually is, dear God, for us to dispense these words lavishly . . . but we do not do it nearly enough. How stingy we are with what could be a powerful remedy for another person's miserable day.

A simple word of praise. A compliment. A note of appreciation.

So much better gifts are they than flowers given at a funeral or a spoken eulogy that will never be heard by the very person who needed to hear those life-giving words much earlier.

Pass/Fail

Ever been curious as to why this newsletter is called the 77% Weekly? Well, here’s the answer: it is published 40 out of 52 weeks of the year. It goes out every Monday, except for the last Monday of the month. 40 divided by 52 is approximately 77%. And in school, 77% was considered a passing grade.

When I named this newsletter, it was because it dawned on me that we push ourselves too hard. We strive to get 100%, we tell ourselves we must get an A or an A+ in this thing called life, and that anything less is unacceptable. We push ourselves so hard that we have this tendency to end up stressed out and missing the point.

Life is not graded — it’s pass/fail.

There was an old joke in rabbinical school:

Q: What do they call the person who graduates at the bottom of the class?

A: “Rabbi.”

The prayer classes I took were pass/fail.

(Wouldn’t it be odd to think I got a “D” in prayer?)

In the same way, life is pass/fail.

Think about this — achieving a 77% passing grade means you can make errors 23% of the time. You can get it wrong 23% of the time, and still pass successfully.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t give myself permission to make that many errors. I hold myself to such a high standard of living that I have to be right all the time. But the reality is, we’re allowed to make all those mistakes. We’re human, after all.

I need to remember to have compassion. I must remember that it’s not about getting an A all the time. I only need to get a 77%.

Regardless of your theology, think for a moment about God’s point of view (we are just using that term for argument’s sake). Would God give you a passing grade? Would God be proud of you just for being you? For dealing with life the very best way you can? I think the answer is a resounding yes.

Spiritual-religious advice: Stop grading yourself. You’re doing OK.