surrender – Page 2

Continual Rebirths

April 18, 2018

Life done well is the continual process of reinventing yourself. Sometimes this happens in a sad way – as in a mid-life crisis: finding a new wife, a new life and maybe a new car. Sometimes people just take on a new outward appearance. Your outward appearance can be a reflection of an internal process, but recreating yourself is more than just changing how you look. It is undergoing real and thorough transformation. Some people age, but do not really grow. They stay rigidly attached to “the way they have always done things.” They don’t adapt. They just stay put. Read More

Grieving

November 11, 2014

In order to love and accept our life and those around us as they are, we must learn to grieve what we thought they would be. Without doing that, we will always love our ideals more than we love the actual thing. This does not mean we have to stop wishing for things, for hope is a good thing. In fact, if we do not do this sort of grieving, we will not be able to hope. We will only have depression – the kind that follows when we do not get what we thought we should have. Everyone goes through this kind of disillusionment – mostly in our adulthood (there is a normal developmental idealism that carries us through our youth). Our marriages, our careers and our lives in general undergo this disillusionment and it is totally normal! Maturity is the consistent “surrendering” of our ideals to attempt to love what is, rather than what we hoped would be. Again, the hope is good. Our demands for what we hope are what are dangerous. Read More

The Never-Ending Shed

June 20, 2012

Life is a continual series of surrenderings. Once you think you have died enough, life and God are back to prune some more. There is more to shed. If you are wise, you will continue to be open and ready for these little deaths. Do not build up your shields against them because then they will just fall harder and faster – it will take more to undo the cozy shelter you have built for yourself. The shelter is that which you have built to protect yourself from what – more abundant life? That for which you have been incessantly searching? Hmm… Read More