For the last part of Lent, I’ve been using a devotional book called Let Nothing Disturb You: A Journey to the Center of the Soul with Teresa of Avila. Today’s reading included these words: “For if we are attached to any one thing, it is because we set a value on it. It may be painful to surrender what we value, but what greater loss,what greater blindness, what greater calamity could there be than to make much of what is nothing, to cling to what has no value?” (p. 186) I often reflect on the many things I am attached to. These are not things of no value, but they also don’t have ultimate value. My roles (pastor, coach, writer, wife, mother). The church structures (local and denominational). Money. What other people think of me. The choices my children make. None of these are ultimate, and the less I cling to them the freer I am spiritually. And, paradoxically, the less I cling to those roles, the more I am able to live in and with them well. The less I cling to my roles, the more I can occupy them with grace and generosity.
I’ll be asking myself this question this Holy Week: Where do I need to let go? What about you?