Learning to let go

Kenneth L. Gibble

Ascension Day. Lots of people aren't even aware there is such a Christian holy day, much less that it comes on a Thursday, 40 days after Easter. Unlike many people, I have childhood memories of Ascension Day because my father's employer, a devout Christian, always gave his employees a vacation on Ascension Day. I would like to make a modest proposal: that Christians renew their observance of this holy day. If nothing else, the Ascension speaks to us of the human experience of learning to let go.

That is what the disciples of Jesus faced as they stood there gazing into heaven while "a cloud hid Him from their sight" (Acts 1:9). How it happened, we cannot know. One moment Jesus was there talking with them. They could hear Him and touch Him. Then, suddenly, He was gone. How must they have felt? What thoughts went through their minds? How could they go on without Him to teach them, comfort them, "crack the whip" over them, inspire them?

Saying goodbye to someone or something you have loved is never easy. There are people who will go to great lengths to avoid goodbyes.

Some time back, I read a book written by a man who played minor league baseball. On the first team he played for, he struck up a friendship with another young player. Toward the end of the season, the other player was released by the team management. The writer says, "I learned of his release when I arrived at the Armory one afternoon. He'd left without saying goodbye. I was glad. I don't like goodbyes, never have. I distrust the emotions that arise from them, which are magnified and distorted by them."

It may be true that goodbyes "magnify and distort" human emotions. ome may have had and in the God whose love will not let go of any of God's children, come what may.

There is also the final letting go that comes with death. It may be that God, in divine wisdom, gives us other leave-takings to prepare us for this ultimate one. All of life, as we know it, consists of beginnings and endings, of comings and goings, of learning to know places and people and then having to separate from them. Our minds cannot conceive of anything different. Only the divine imagination can speak of eternity, of reunion with loved ones, of tears wiped away, of heaven.

Meanwhile, in this life, we face the necessity of learning to let go of our loved ones. But we need not let go of the joy and love we have experienced with them. That is ours to keep, in our memories and hearts. And, in a larger sense, all the love God gives us is a permanent, irrevocable gift. What we are called to let go of may be the presence of a person or one stage of a relationship or a child's dependence on us. But the love itself goes on.

The love Jesus had shared with His disciples could not be taken away. But what He had taught them was that love that is kept, clutched onto, is not serving the purpose God created it for. Love is not to be hoarded as a miser hoards gold; instead, it is to be given away. This is the last and greatest lesson to be learned about letting go. It is the lesson of letting go of ourselves, of our tendency to suppose the world revolves around us.

"Let go and let God," runs the popular saying. Some people think that means we should sit back and let God do everything for us. I think it means something else. I think it means that letting go is part of life itself, that if we try to keep people or experiences or love for ourselves, we will never know the fullness of life that God wills for us. I think it means that as we experience the pain of letting go, we will meet God there, the God who has promised that nothing in all creation can make the Lord let go of us.

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