I Give Up!

I don't like to "let Go and let God." 

I'm more of a "God helps those who help themselves" kinda gal.

Let go?  And who is going to pick up the mess when I do?

God?  God?!  Have you seen what a mess He's made of things?  Cancer, disease, child labour, war, genocide, global warming.  Uh yeah...I think He's having enough troubles managing his own affairs let alone worry about taking care of mine.

Maybe He oughta try yoga.

"Surrender to the Earth," and all that.

Except I'm not any better at surrendering than I am at letting go. 

My least favourite pose in yoga is "Child's Pose."  That's the one where you just sit back on your heels and lean forward and chill out.  Let go, they tell you.  Complete surrender. 

And all I can do is think of how uncomfortable this is and how I hate being bent forward over my fat stomach this way and is my fat ass far down enough on my heels and my stomach is on my knees which is obstructing my breathing and I can't draw breath and I hate this pose and when is it time to get into "Warrior."

I'm more of a fighter.   

I can flee too. 

But surrender? Let go?

That sounds like giving up to me.

A few weeks ago the kids and I did a mini archery class at the Abbey Museum in Caboolture.  The kids do it all the time, but I thought I would give it a go this time as well.  I had Andrew show me how to hold the bow and string the arrow and then....well, then I had to let go.

I had to let go.

Let go.

Let go, my mind said.

Let go, my son said.

Let go, said the instructor.

But letting go involved, well, letting go, and it was really really hard.  You see, I had spent all that time learning to set it up and I finally had it all in a nice position and it looked good and my fingers were in the right position ad if I let go I wasn't sure what would happen to the string and to my fingers and to that position that I had worked so hard to get to.

I am not making this into a metaphor on purpose.

Finally, I let go.

And the arrow sailed pretty far and fairly straight.