Holy Resistance: Surrender and Control
A client of mine, let’s call him Edgar, a lovely man with a history of violent physical abuse at the hands of an alcoholic father, remembers the first time he felt the awareness of a spiritual presence, an encounter with something outside of himself that created an opening within himself. He described it as hearing the voice of God in nature, an experience that he says changed his life forever.
It was Christmas morning in a factory town in England. Edgar’s father was already drunk by the time the last of the meager presents were opened. Something set his father off, and rather than cower in the corner, the then 17-year-old Edgar gave a verbal rebuff that started his father’s attack. Screaming and beating him as the rest of the family looked on in silence, Christmas had been ruined, like many other holidays, like so many other ordinary days for that matter. On this holy day, the outburst ended with Edgar being locked out of the house. No jacket, no hat or mittens, only a long-sleeved shirt and jeans on that bitterly cold winter morning. Despite Edgar’s pounding on the door to be let in, and his apologies for nothing that he had started, there was no response from the other side.
It was then that Edgar turned away from the house for the first time and started walking. He walked through the quiet village where the streets were empty; he walked to the edge of town and wandered through the grassy paths and fields. He walked for hours noticing the clear, still quality of the air, and the beauty of the English countryside. He started to feel a strange sense of calm inside, when he heard a voice that said, “You don’t need this. You don’t deserve this. You can turn and walk away. You have something different inside of you. You are not like him, and you don’t owe him your life. Find your own destiny, and I will be here to walk beside you.”
When I asked him what happened next, he said, “Well, I was different now, wasn’t I? It’s not every day that something like that happens to you.” He described what was different as he no longer felt as though he was under the spell of his father’s intimidation. He had found another, deeper, and more powerful source of connection. It felt right and real and tangible.
Edgar went back home that afternoon, but he knew that he could leave at any time. In fact, psychically, at that moment, he did leave. Later, he left for private day school, and years later he left for the United States. During those years while at home, he walked to the edge of town frequently to spend time in the stillness of nature and to touch that source of spiritual peace and strength. He called it his communion, something that connected him to the spiritual part of himself and something beyond himself that gave him an enormous sense of comfort.
Years later, in my office, he wonders why he stopped doing this practice since it always seemed to make such a difference back then.
“So, why did you stop?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I get distracted. I turn on the TV instead. I’m exhausted when I get home from work and just need to ‘veg-out’.”
“So why did you stop?”
“There’s no convenient place to walk in my neighborhood. I’d have to get in a car and drive somewhere to be out in the natural world.”
“So, why did you stop?”
“I don’t feel worthy.”
“Worthy?”
“Actually, that’s a cop-out. I’m afraid that if I did start communing again, I’d really have to become responsible for my life.”
Surrender and control. With matters of Holy Resistance, I think we have it backward, or at least confused. Perhaps, with Edgar, it’s a little of both. It is easy to see how he still may not feel worthy of spiritual grace given his family background; and it makes perfect sense that he feels overly responsible to manage his own destiny, not trusting in the help of Spirit, given the fact that as a child he was left totally alone and dependent on his own wit and resources.
On some deep level, Edgar is tired. He’s tired of being responsible in a way that he associates with too much effort, clawing his way out of a pit of indifference and isolation in order to survive or thrive. Surrender on some level meant death, the death of his precious and unique soul.
How many of us resonate with this combination of factors to one degree or another? How many of us haven’t discovered how surrendering to God’s grace can make living a responsible life a much easier, less isolating proposition? This type of surrender eventually means that we will encounter our spiritual destiny. But what if we’re afraid of what the spirit has in store for us? Ah, loss of control, the centerpiece of Holy Resistance. How can we trust that living our spiritual purpose will bring us joy rather than hardship and sacrifice?
A better way to think about this type of surrender is to see it as an act of alignment, a form of remembering something we thought we had forgotten. This realignment of our energy frees up more vitality within the psyche. And this increased access to energy occurs because the energy used in the service of over-determination and control has been reallocated in the service of something more important, something larger and connected to spirit, something much larger than life as we know it.
Exercise:
What if you did something today, one little thing – like Edgar’s taking a walk in the fields on the outskirts of his village—what if you just started this today?
What if you said to yourself, I can find the time, I will make the time. It can be five minutes, ok ten minutes, that’s all. Just ten minutes.
What would you do that would be your version of a centering activity, a way of quieting – a break from your routine?
What if you imagined letting the Divine Spirit enter this space and time to be with you? Just be. Don’t force it. Just being in the quiet with yourself is enough.
It is enough to create an opening, a parting of the sea, it is a crack that lets the light come in.
Have faith. Of course, this will happen for you. You, too, are a precious child of God.
Be sure to read, Holy Resistance and Forms of Holy Resistance, which offer different snapshots of what Holy Resistance looks like. By presenting various pictures, it is my goal that these very normal human behaviors will help you to recognize aspects of your own struggle. Hopefully, this recognition will be met with humility rather than self-contempt, because the desire to do this journey perfectly is the greatest roadblock or resistance of them all.
Learn more about Spiritual Integration HERE.