Letting go

I learn every day anew how to let go. It seems it becomes clearer to me just how much I need to let go and how so much is out of my control anyway so why not just release it?

Monkeyboy is so incredibly handsome. He looks out with his deep carmel eyes intently at me. What is he saying? I haven't a clue. I just get lost in those eyes thinking soon he'll be setting out on his own. He'll have his own directions, goals and mission. He's not mine. Just as Jesus didn't belong to Mary. Yes she was his mother and yes he loved her but he also turns to those telling him his mother is asking for him , and just about denies her any earthly filial devotion. He says 'Who is my mother? Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of the Father are my mother, sister and brothers' Filial bonds are formed in union with the will of the Father.

Letting go.

How Mary must have let go. What son today would have the nerve to say something like this in front of his mother or at least within hearing distance? Seriously. It almost sounds like Jesus has a severed relationship with his mother and perhaps he does but not like most protestants assume. Mary is reminded yet again that Jesus was meant for the world, not for her. God the Father demands complete detachment from Jesus and he gives it on the cross. He detaches himself from his comforts and adheres to the Father's will. Jesus demands complete detachment from his disciples. Is there any disciple more detached than Mary? Isn't she the model? She never denied her son his place on the cross. Her focus was ever on the Father's will.

When he was born, his birthday shower gifts from the magi were essentially funeral gifts. How happy would you be if you received embalming fluids for your baby's shower? What would you respond? Mary responds - 'He is for the world' in every act she makes as mother. Her attitude was 'He is not mine. He's been entrusted to me.'

As I age I find I have to let go of all sorts of things. My kids are one of those things but so is my fertility, the bouts of angry feelings, of changing metabolism, of slowing down. I could get hormone therapy, plastic surgery, botox, whatever. I could hang on as tight as I can to what I have here and now but is that all there is?
I have to remind myself that my place is not here. My home is somewhere else and to get there I have to be prepared to let go.