Unlighting the Tree: A Spiritual Practice of Letting Go

​On Sunday evening I was watching football while writing Christmas cards. Out of nowhere, the corner of my left eye saw something blink. I turned my head, but saw nothing. I continued to work. I fiddled with an envelope, then caught it again. Blink. Head turn. Nothing. Then I placed the address labels on the envelope, peeled back another snowflake stamp, and began to place it somewhat nicely in the upper right hand corner of the envelope. Blink. Blink. Head turn. Nothing. Finally, just as I was sealing the envelope, a moment of rapid blinking occurred. I turned my head to the left just in time to see part of the bottom row of our pre-lit Christmas tree go out. 

Sighing deeply, I pushed away my tray table and bent over part of the tree. I wiggled a few light bulbs…nothing. I pulled out a couple of light bulbs and then pushed back in…still nothing. Then I did what we all do in this day and age when something stops working the way we want it to work…I rebooted. Or, at least I rebooted in the manner that one reboots a Christmas tree…I turned it off, gave it a minute, then turned it back on…nothing.

Having reached the end of my electrical skill set, I knew that there were really only two options remaining:  1) Leave it alone and try not to let the area void of light bother me for the rest of the season; or 2) Sit down and go through each bulb to try to find the one that shorted the rest of them out without pulling down the whole tree and all of its ornaments in the process. As I let my back settle into the softness of the couch, I knew which option I was going to choose. I would leave the lights alone. I would stay off of YouTube trying to find “life hacks” that would help easily find the problematic bulb. I would address the issue more thoroughly when the season was over.

Fr. Richard Rohr once wrote that, “All great spirituality is about letting go. Instead, we have made it to be about taking in, attaining, performing, winning, and succeeding. True spirituality echoes the paradox of life itself. It trains us in both detachment and attachment: detachment from the passing so we can attach to the substantial. But if we do not acquire good training in detachment, we may attach to the wrong things, especially our own self-image and its desire for security.” 

Now, I will be the first to admit that choosing not to tackle the tree lights was not about acquiring some great spiritual discipline. It was not about practicing detachment. It was about fatigue and a general disinterest in using my very limited free time to do something I loathe. But that doesn’t mean that that’s ALL letting go of a fully lit tree had to be.

What if for all of these years I have gotten spiritual practices and transformation all wrong? Maybe learning to let go is no big, epiphanous moment in which I make a decision to let go and then–through sheer grit and determination–force myself to comply. Maybe spiritual practice is less like setting an intention or creating a resolution, and more like learning to listen to ourselves in moments when it would be so easy to listen to the “have to’s” and the “supposed to’s” and the “gotta be’s.” Could it be that in listening to my mind and my body tell me that there was no bandwidth for finding the burned out bulb right now that I was actually practicing letting go?

In a sermon on 1 John 4:9, Meister Eckhart said, “God asks only that you get out of God’s way and let God be God in you.” I wonder if that’s what spiritual practices really are? Not one more thing that we have to take on, try to do, or try to be, but rather, the ordinary, everyday moments when we get to choose whether or not we will get out of God’s way so that God can be God in us? Like, maybe God is just waiting on us to stop doing all of the things, conquering every issue that comes along all by ourselves, or gutting everything out. Maybe God is waiting for us to drop the facades we all walk around with that give the impression that we can do all of the things and be all of the things for everybody. Maybe God is just waiting for us to stop worshiping the gods of our own making–success, financial freedom, winning, performing–and finally let God be God for us–in us. And maybe noticing and allowing that to happen–allowing God to happen–IS, in the end, the spiritual practice?

I’m not sure. Maybe that’s a stretch. Maybe it’s only a stretch for someone still learning to detach? You’ll have to decide for yourself. As for me and my house, we will have a tree with one section unlit.

On the journey through Advent with you,
Pr. Melissa

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