A letter to my friend about Receiving and Releasing...

Hey Jay…

First, nice hair.  It seems women are the ones who comment about new haircuts and “good hair days”, but I thought I’d do the masculine thing and compliment your new look. Haha.  I don’t know if it’s because you were fed up with the split-ends or if this indicates your hunch about the next election and whether you could imagine yourself with hair down to the back of your knees.  Either way, it was an easy loss of 4 pounds.

I was thinking about two things early this morning when I awoke but had yet to open my eyes.  For some reason I was thinking about “receiving” and “letting”.  Why those two words/concepts were on my mind I’ll never know.  I just laid in bed thinking about why it’s so hard to receive compliments, gifts, blessings, grace, etc. and why it’s so hard to let go.  Letting life happen, letting my kids make tough choices, letting the free will of others not cling to me…letting their consequences be theirs instead of somehow carrying them myself. 

As I sat there with the thought, it turned to ‘receiving and releasing’.  I heard someone talk about a concept called “Benevolent Detachment” recently.  It was described as a healthy ability to break away or let others break away…to leave and be left as a sort of kindness to yourself, a grace to one’s own soul.  I suppose it’s like inhaling and exhaling—this receiving and releasing.  But unlike breathing, it’s not natural.  At least not for me.

What thin veil exists between this exchange of emotions?  

I don’t know why this was on my mind this morning, but often in this state between dreaming and waking I loiter in a land between.  My subconscious and my conscious talk to each other about things, real or perceived.  I decided today to just share with you before I knew why I was thinking such things.  I literally have no conclusions, but I wanted to write in an unresolved state.

Moments later the verse in Timothy came to mind, not entirely sure of the reference…“fight the good fight, keep the faith, finish the race.”  Fight, Faith, Finish…these F-words were imprinted on the back of my eyelids.  I stared at them with my mind’s eye. Then my brain connected to them as a man who wants to make it to the end well.  To live well and to die well.

Fight…

Keep Fighting…

Fight to the finish.

To keep on.  

Anyway…just before I opened my eyes I thought about what Receiving and Releasing have to do with Fighting, Keeping on Fighting, and Finishing the Fight.  In some ways fighting language seems different than letting go language…but maybe that was what my brain was paradoxically trying to marry together?  

Anywho…just some things I thought I’d get off my chest.

Hope you enjoy your longer weekend.

May the wind be at your back and may it finally penetrate your helmet head and reach your scalp. Hahaha.