Another quote from Beatrice Bruteau's book Radical Optimism which I've featured in the last two Blogs:
"I think most of the spiritual life is really a matter of relaxing - of what Meister Eckhart called Gelassenheit - of letting go, ceasing to cling, ceasing to insist on our own way, ceasing to tense ourselves up for this or against that..."
What an astounding idea: most of the spiritual life is about relaxing! How different that is from all the striving and proving and working harder we tend to think is evidence of a spiritual life. It even sounds different from the exhortations to "surrender" or "let go" which can sound like a pretty stern challenge. Of course Bruteau proceeds to say that it is about letting go - or surrendering if you like. But to see that letting go as a relaxing into the love and wisdom of God (rather than a striving to be "a more selfless Christian") makes all the difference. Why would I want to cling when I could relax? I think it all comes back to love. We cling when we fear that there's no-one there to catch me if I fall; that there's no way to keep safe unless I keep control... But when we know at the deepest level that we are held in divine love it is safe to relax, safe to let go, wonderful to surrender control to the Lover.
