LETTING GO

  “The trees are about to show how lovely it is to let things go,” someone said about the approaching autumn. 

Letting things go. Now that’s a big deal. Most of us have a hard time “letting things go.”

My late wife, Carol, grew up poor in Washington, Pennsylvania. She talked about growing up in “two rooms and a bath” with her single mother who rented places for them to stay. Carol’s father and mother divorced before Carol was two. Carol was sentimental about “her stuff” that included mementoes (objects kept as reminders of people or events) from her beloved Grandpa Ben Steele and Grandma Ella Steele’s home place in Lone Pine, Penn. Over the years, Carol also collected lots of doodads and figurines (small carved or molded figures).

When Carol and I lived a few months in Aurora, Colorado, in 1970 when I was in the Army, I bought longhorn steer horns. They were perhaps four feet from tip to tip — could have mounted them on my car hood, I reckon (ha, ha). Three years later we lived in North Plainfield, N.J., and sold those horns at a yard sale before we moved back to SC. I owned a 12-string guitar and a saxophone. Sold them too. I’ve spent a lot of life living through obsessions and then moving on — but I still hang on to too much stuff.  

Why do many of us want to hold on to things? Why do we want to live in the past and not let things go?

Sources say, “Reasons you live in the past may include traumatic experiences, fear that it will happen again, or shame that it ever did. You may also wish to change an outcome, hang on to the fear of the present or future, or worry that you will never experience a deep emotion, like love, again.”

Sources also say, “People who live in the past find it difficult to accept change. They hold onto their established routines, familiar places, and people they’ve known for ages. They don’t want to grow and leave their comfort zones. They want things to remain the same.”

“Nostalgia” is “a longing for the past, for a period or place with happy personal associations.” A central part of nostalgia is “rosy retrospection,” sources say. “This makes us remember past events more fondly and positively than they might have actually been. It’s like wearing rose-tinted glasses when looking back at our past.” We had rather live in a pleasantly remembered past than face tough situations happening now or looming in the future. 

Jesus is my source of stability. “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). At age six, I became a follower — sometimes a stumbling follower — of Jesus Christ. Moving through life, I have found Jesus Christ to be my Rock. “On Christ the Solid Rock I stand; all other ground is sinking sand,” are words of an old song. 

The spiritual meaning of “falling leaves” is that leaves represent the cycle of life, someone said. In an analogy (“a comparison between two things for the purpose of explanation”), we often compare one’s life to one year in a tree’s life. A tree puts out new green leaves (we are born and start growing); summer arrives (representing the middle of our lives); autumn represents the “getting older but still getting around” time of life; winter represents waning years. The “one year” comparison to human life ends in death on the last day of “winter.”

But there’s another way to look at trees and seasons. A tree can live a long time and weather many seasons. Like trees, we see seasons come and go, and we usually live many years. 

We do not want to get stuck in a season we need to move through. I spent a year as a US soldier in Vietnam but never saw combat. Later, back in the US, the government offered weekly nightly “rap sessions” (discussion groups) for Vietnam veterans troubled with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). I had few problems but attended some sessions to see if I could help other vets. During the meetings, I noticed some vets discussed the same experiences each week. It seemed they were stuck in traumatic experiences and could not move on in life. We all can get stuck in something life has thrown at us.  

Much of moving on through life’s seasons has to do with forgiveness. Forgiving those — individuals, churches, the government, etc. — who have hurt us can help release us from pain, resentment, bitterness, hurt, and anger we feel. By forgiving, we can deal better with physical and mental pain and find peace with God through Jesus.

When autumn and winter finally arrive in our lives — I’m now using the “one year” analogy — may we “let things go,” accept change, and rely on Jesus, who said, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).