OUR ONLY NEED IS TO LET GO

Forgiveness is the religious word for letting go, according to Richard Rohr, and that makes perfect sense to me. Which doesn't make forgiveness a bit easier to do, but it does stop the incessant mental debate: "What does forgiveness mean, actually?" It means, actually, let go of resentment...any resentment.

That brings to mind the heart-burn commercial, and I paraphrase, don't get a resentment in the first place. Which, since we're given to mental debates, begs the question, "How?" How do we not get a resentment when, to our reasoning mind, we have been deliberately and with malice aforethought slighted, snubbed, ignored, dissed...and worse?

Here are a few life lessons: "Let nothing that others do to you alter your treatment of them." This may be the most effective, albeit least-used, spiritual direction there is.

Another, with a dual personality is, "Do not respond in kind." The duality is, when treated shabbily, do not respond in kind; however, when treated kindly, with love and laughter, do respond in kind. Resentments cannot even take seed if we will stay our focus here.

Then there is my personal favorite: "Just don't be as nasty as you want to be." I originally read this in a column by Henry Mitchell in "The Washington Post" back in the '80s. It made a home in my head and my heart, and I can actually do it better than most of the other lessons.

In the end letting go is all about denying our reasoning mind's perceived need to protect self. The wonderment is that protecting self is not only God's job, that's his perfect plan. His perfect plan conceived before time began, with you and me, personally, on his mind. Our only need is to let go to receive it.

Thank you.