EXCERPT

From Holding Tight to Letting Go

For years I have loved watching trapeze artists. The love began when my then- eighty- nine- year- old

father came for a visit. Let’s go to the circus, we decided one day. That evening we watched five South

African trapeze artists—three fliers and two catchers. They danced in the air! The fliers soared and all

was dangerous until they found themselves caught by the strong hands of their partners. I told my

father that I had always wanted to fly like that, that perhaps I had missed my calling!

I am constantly moved by the courage of my circus friends. At each performance they trust that their

flight will end with their hands sliding into the secure grip of a partner. They also know that only the

release of the secure bar allows them to move on with arcing grace to the next. Before they can be

caught, they must let go. They must brave the emptiness of space.

Living with this kind of willingness to let go is one of the greatest challenges we face. Whether it

concerns a person, possession, or personal reputation, in so many areas we hold on at all costs. We

become heroic defenders of our dearly gained happiness. We treat our sometimes inevitable losses as

failures in the battle of survival.

The great paradox is that it is in letting go, we receive. We find safety in unexpected places of risk. And

those who try to avoid all risk, those who would try to guarantee that their hearts will not be broken,

end up in a self- created hell. C. S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves,

To love at all is to be vulnerable…If you want to make sure of keeping [your heart] intact, you must give

your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries;

avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your selfishness. But in that casket— safe, dark,

motionless, airless— it will change. It will not be broken—it will become unbreak-able, impenetrable,

irredeemable…The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the danger of love

is Hell.

In so many ways, the more we insist on control and the more we resist the call to hold our lives lightly,

the more we have to deny the reality of our losses and the more artificial our existence becomes. Our

belief that we should grasp tightly what we need provides one of the great sources of our suffering. But

letting go of possessions and plans and people allows us to enter, for all its risks, a life of new,

unexpected freedom.

How can we live with greater willingness to let go? Another step in turning our mourning into dancing

has to do with not clutching what we have, not trying to reserve a safe place we can rest in, not trying to

choreograph our own or others’ lives, but to surrender to the God whom we love and want to follow.

God invites us to experience our not being in control as an invitation to faith.

Taken from “Turn My Mourning into Dancing: Finding Hope During Hard Times” by Henri Nouwen. Copyright 2001 Estate of Henri Nouwen. Preface Copyright 2001 Timothy Jones. Used with permission from Thomas Nelson Publishing. www.thomasnelson.com

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