Blog 588 – 03.31.2017

The Act Of Letting Go

Often the greatest act of love is letting go. I heard that in a beautiful love song this morning on my way to work. The song is Somewhere Down The Road by Barry Manilow and the lines in the song that touched me the most are, “Sometimes good-byes are not forever. It doesn’t matter if you’re gone, I still believe in us together. I understand more than you think I can. You have to go out on your own so you can find your way back home…Letting go is just another way to say I’ve always loved you so.”

One of the most beautiful love stories is The Prodigal Son where a wise and loving parent lets his son go so he can find his way back home. I believe that these adventures in time and space that we call lives are merely that, Love has let us go so that we can find our way back home. I teasingly said to a sweet and loving mother just the other day who has a bit of a problem letting go and saying no to her children and grandchildren that if you add an S to the beginning of the word mother you get smother. That kind of love is neither healthy for the giver or the receiver. My friend longs to experience her own life and dreams as do her children and grandchildren but each feel a bit trapped by a love that will not let go.

This lesson of letting go being a sometimes difficult but tremendous act of love is also illustrated in Disney’s recent release of Beauty And The Beast. Just when the Beast is beginning to realize how much he loves Belle and is beginning to hope that she loves him, he asks her if she could ever be happy in the castle with him. Her reply is how can I if I am not free. Then when she sees in the magic mirror that her dad is in trouble and the Beast sees the loving concern in her eyes for her father he says, “You must go to him now.” Love always sets us free to find our way back home. As Belle rides to rescue her dad the Beast sings one of the most hauntingly beautiful love songs about waiting in his lonely tower before an open door. Love, true love, always waits before an open door. The great Lover has said, “I set before you an open door.” Another great love song says, “Oh Love that will not let me go.” But Love does let us go ever trusting us to find our way back home. We so misunderstand Love and Faith, it is not about our faith in Love but Love’s faith in us. Faith is what makes it easy to let go and trust love to guide us all back home.

Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White