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Minister's Minute: The gift of letting go

Life is a school if we’re paying attention. It teaches us by our living day by day, year by year. When we pay attention in the “school of life,” we grow in wisdom.
Tim Dutcher-Walls
Tim Dutcher-Walls

Life is a school if we’re paying attention. It teaches us by our living day by day, year by year. When we pay attention in the “school of life,” we grow in wisdom.

There are times when life presents us with the challenge and opportunity of letting go. Our human tendency is to want to hold on and keep control. But the gift of letting go can happen, even despite ourselves.

This is liberating, and we experience peace and equanimity. As we we live and get older, more opportunities are inevitably presented to us to let go.

Author and teacher, Jack Kornfield, writes: “Letting go is a central theme in spiritual practice, as we see the preciousness and brevity of life. When letting go is called for, if we have not learned to do so, we suffer greatly, and when we get to the end of our life, we may have what is called a crash course. Sooner or later we have to learn to let go and allow the changing mystery of life to move through us without our fearing it, without holding and grasping.” (A Path with Heart, Bantam Books, 1993)

May we grow in the wisdom life teaches. See you in class!