Letting go

One of the really difficult challenges of our social media age is discerning truth from fiction when it comes to the news. There is so much misinformation floating around out there that it is hard to know what is what. The best we can do, perhaps, is learn as much as we can about our news sources and their biases rather than just accepting what we read online or hear on the news as gospel truth.  The same thing applies to our spiritual journeys.  It is important that we read books that are based on well-documented scholarship and sources, and talk to people whom we have found to be trustworthy.

Step 11 encourages us to improve our conscious contact with the God of our understanding.  That certainly presents us with a wide open field.  Again, it can be difficult to know if the sources of information we are seeking out are valid.  Let’s face it.  Organized religion has every reason to try to brainwash us into following their teachings and interpretations, thus giving them control over our spiritual and even financial journeys.  Fortunately,  the first 10 steps give us some very important clues on how to proceed when we come to that point in our lives when we truly want to improve our conscious contact with a meaningful higher power.  

They are:  1. Coming to terms with our basic powerlessness.  2 and 3. Coming to trust your gut about the God of our understanding, rather than what others tell us.  4. Coming to terms with a lifetime of denial and becoming as honest with ourselves as we can.  5. Learning to confide in trusted others who we’ve learned have our backs and won’t judge us.   6 and  7. Coming to terms with our character defects and then asking the God of our understanding to remove them via our life experiences.  8 and 9,  Making amends when we know we have injured ourselves and others. 10. Taking a daily moral inventory of ourselves and when we are wrong promptly admit it, first to ourselves and then to others as needed.  But above all, it is important to learn how to be honest with ourselves and no longer run away from the harsh truths about our own brokenness and shadow selves. Then and only then are we ready for improving our conscious contact with the God of our understanding through prayer and meditation, asking only for God’s will for our lives and the courage to carry that out. And let me add this, as I worked these steps, I discovered that I no longer needed to present myself as perfect.  It is so freeing to admit when I am wrong.  Being more open and honest has opened many doors in my life. 

My friend recently shared The Wisdom Jesus by Cynthia Bourgeault with me.  It’s not an easy read, so I am slowly devouring it.  In the first chapter, Bourgeault begins with this quote from The Gospel of Thomas, which I find to be so true to my experience and that of others who have been willing to step outside of the box and ask questions and push their spiritual boundaries.  “If you are searching, you must not stop until you find.  When you find it, however, you will be troubled.  Your confusion will give way to wonder, and in wonder you will reign over all things.  Your sovereignty {your sense of rightness} will be your rest.”   Which brings me back to what Jesus is to have said in Matthew, “Come unto me,  all you who are weary and tired from carrying life’s heavy loads,  and I will give you rest.   Take my yoke and put it on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in spirit, and I will give you rest.  For the yoke I put on you is easy and the load I will put on you is light.”   In the end, isn’t it simply all about letting go, one of the hardest and eventually easiest things we’ll ever do?  Letting go of all of the rules, all of the shoulds and oughts of life.  Letting go of our worries that are outside of our control and just learning how to take one day at a time and enjoy one moment at a time.  Letting go by trusting that God,  or the universe,  or whatever the God of your understanding is, that God has your back.