3. Letting Go

There is a lovely story by Jonathan Livingston Seagull author Richard Bach that I wanted to use in my book that didn’t make the cut. It goes like this...

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all – young and old, rich and poor, good and evil – the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks on the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life. Resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go and let it take me where it will. Clinging I shall die of boredom.”

The other creatures laughed at him. “Fool”, they said. “Let go and the current will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you’ll die quicker than boredom.”

But the one heeded them not. Taking a deep breath, he let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature refused to grab hold and cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more.

As he moved downstream other creatures to whom he was a stranger, cried, “It’s a miracle! A creature like us who flies. It’s a messiah come to save us all.” And the one carried in the current said, “I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true adventure is the voyage.”

But they cried the more, “Savior”, all the while clinging to the rocks. And before they knew it he was gone. They were left alone and all they had were their legends of a savior.

I relate to this One. I’m someone who managed to let go of what people told me and set out to find the truth on my own. I don’t claim to have found it in its fullness. It’s something that reveals itself in stages. I’m just allowing it to happen.

And yet when I see others holding on to things that no longer serve them, I feel the need to share the freedom that is waiting to be discovered. A great anxiety has overtaken people lately. Things we once trusted are falling apart. Things we once believed are being questioned. The twigs we have held onto no longer sustain us and we’re looking for something that will. Thankfully there is something that will. That’s what I will explore. Wherever the river takes me I will share what I see with those who continue to cling.

Andre Gide was a Pulitzer Prize winning French author who said, “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a time.” I may lose sight of the shore from time to time, but it’s okay.

The water’s fine.