Letting Go.   I read this piece by Frederick Buechner yesterday.  While it seems extravagant to just quote someone else, I need Buechner’s wisdom to tell my own story.

I quickly read this I might add; I needed to get on with my work for the day.  I did, however, feel that the words were serendipitous or synchronicity or some kind of miraculous coincidence that these were the words I just needed to ponder for the day.

WE FIND BY LOSING. We hold fast by letting go. We become something new by ceasing to be something old. This seems to be close to the heart of that mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side of death as the last letting-go of all, but I begin to know that I do not need to know and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing. God knows. That is all that matters. Out of Nothing he creates Something. Out of the End he creates the Beginning. Out of selfness we grow, by his grace, toward selflessness, and out of that final selflessness, which is the loss of self altogether, “eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man” what new marvels he will bring to pass next. All’s lost. All’s found. And if such words sound childish, so be it. Out of each old self that dies some precious essence is preserved for the new self that is born; and with in the child-self that is part of us all, there is perhaps nothing more precious than the fathomless capacity to trust.

– Frederick Buechner, Originally published in A Room Called Remember

My thoughts for the day rested on the last few words “the fathomless capacity to trust.”  But I re-read the words today and that wasn’t truly where I needed to land.  It was this part: I do not need to know and that I do not need to be afraid of not knowing.

Part of my own letting go means letting go of an “expected” unfolding of my life now. Letting go of what I thought and think is possible.  Letting go of how I see myself as valuable that is usually tied to a job or professional life.  Letting go to be faithful to what I know to do each day that may not make sense or “get me” anywhere.

Another paradox– paying too much attention to one thing obscures the one thing we need… to let go.