Striving and Non-Striving

I have frequent conversations with persons who are bumping up against the concept of 'non-striving' or 'letting go'...both of which are so foreign to our Western culture, especially United States' version of Western culture. Most mornings I read a short quote from a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn called Arriving at Your Own Door. One day last week the quote was:
"Get Out of Your Own Way: the paradox is that you can only change yourself or the world if you get out of your own way for a moment, and give yourself over and trust in allowing things to be as they already are, without pursuing anything at all."

There are days in which I can say a loud and strong "YES!" to that and then there are other days in which I can't even make sense out of the concept. I heard someone on the radio yesterday say that we need to "stop paddling upstream." The image given was of a person in a canoe paddling upstream, striving and striving to overcome the steady current of the river going against them. In that image the non-striving that we are encouraged to trust is of stopping paddling upstream, letting go of the oars even, and letting your boat follow the current. "Take your hands off of the oars!" is the call and it is so foreign to our cultural nature. It is the reason why I read the quotes most days, to begin my days re-aligning my boat to go with the current and then opening my heart and my awareness in the present moment to not move into the controling, organizing mode of being and doing.

Another quote from Kabat-Zinn reminds us that 'resting in awareness in any moment involves giving ourselves over to all our senses, in touch with inner and outer landscapes as one seamless whole, and thus in touch with all of life unfolding in its fullness in any moment and in every place we might possibily find ourselves, inwardly or outwardly.'

In the midst of the non-striving I read this quote from Etty Hillisum, a young woman who was taken to Auschwitz with her family and killed there in 1943. May the intention of this thought/feeling guide my life and yours:
"...there now flows a constant stream of tenderness, a stream in which all petty desires seem to have been extinguished. All that matters now is to be kind to each other with all the goodness that is in us."

I'm taking my hands off the oars and intending to flow in that stream of tenderness! Come join me!

In Christ,
Mimi Raper