The wise and wonderful have been counseling us for years on the relief and freedom involved in letting go, on releasing people and circumstances to fly from us so that they---and we---can be free to pursue our own ends. Of course this all makes good sense and extolls the wisdom of rational thinking. The trouble is that letting go does not only involve the use of reason but also the powerful clutch of emotion involved in hanging on. So we not only are looking at a rational choice about releasing a situation but also the smarts to know when to do so.
Reason vs. emotion...
The awareness of when gets all mixed up in the function of reason versus emotion. When should we persist longer in the possibility of seeing things through, when just a little more patience might uncover some resolution? On the other hand, when do we get stuck in endless teasing, thwarting, texting, tweeting, cajoling, persuading with rounds and rounds of push back and resistances? When do we have so much feeling involved around a person or situation that there is simply no place for reason to surface?
Inhibition of flow...
Good questions…and part of the endless challenges that growing up every day of our lives presents. One of the problems that not knowing when to let go illustrates is the inhibition of flow, of healthy movement. Stuckness long held eventually leads to stagnation and the small deaths that come from it. Lack of movement leads to lack of health at every level. If we want to be really whole, effective beings, we will all need to recognize when we have worked long enough with something that is not resolving and when it is time to just let go and let new paths open before us.
Necessary?
Necessary? Yes. Easy to do? Maybe not.
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"The awareness of when gets all mixed up in the function of reason versus emotion. When should we persist longer in the possibility of seeing things through, when just a little more patience might uncover some resolution? On the other hand, when do we get stuck in endless teasing, thwarting, texting, tweeting, cajoling, persuading with rounds and rounds of push back and resistances? When do we have so much feeling involved around a person or situation that there is simply no place for reason to surface?"
ReplyDeleteThe answers to all of these questions are easily found in Scripture which offers us the only map out of our confusion. Jesus Christ came as the Messiah so as to heal our narcissism and provide a focus outside of ourselves; a focus that causes us to fathom the reasons why suffering is essential to the healing process. If we can but wrap our minds around this powerful Truth, we will the realize the futility and stupidity of getting all caught up in the folly of idol worship and the egotistical need to be "one up" on everyone else. Our culture thrives upon this kind of stupidity.
We are lost and confused when we make ourselves into gods. Secular synthesis can lead us to the threshold but can't get us through the door. When we know enough to "let go" of our egotism, we have taken the first step toward enlightenment.
"Stuckness and stagnation" result in what and who we choose to believe in. Nobody can do the work for us. We have to arrive at the answers ourselves and if we choose to remain stuck and stagnant, we have only ourselves to blame.
"Many are picked but few are chosen." In other words, some get the idea but are too complacent or stubborn to yield to the Truth. We encourage a culture of narcissism with "selfies," facebook, and all the rest of the "social media" that fosters nothing but narcissism.
We keep chasing our tails in the New Age secular movement that returns us to vacant paganism which is fine for those have no interest in exploring the possibility of eternity and our salvation. We have ears to hear, but we do not listen. We have eyes to see, but we are blind.
As long as we remain as earth worms, we remain stuck and it takes much more than idol words to bring us out of the dark. The suffering is necessary for enlightenment yet our culture can't bear the thought of it.