sweet release

new year's resolutions don't work for me (too much pressure and a setup for failure--who needs that?). instead, i generally like to choose a theme for each new year. i have named 2009 my Year of Releasing. 

rewind to an evening in late november. the kids are in bed, finally. winn and i brew up some hot tea. inadvertently, we fall into a long-overdue, rather intense conversation. here's a snippet:

blah, blah, blah, blah. . .
[winn] "i'm bored with our marriage."
[me] "yeah, me, too."
long pause while we consider the alarming nature of what was just said.

as the conversation progressed, i realized that a big part of the problem was that i was holding some things against winn, keeping him on the hook, so to speak, for the ways he'd left me alone--physically and emotionally--over the past several years. (i have some tiny abandonment issues.) when i spoke the words aloud "i need to forgive you," there was the internal sense that the nail had just been hit on the head. winn had some things to forgive me for as well; namely for the way i'd been shutting him out and keeping him at arm's length. as the conversation came to a close, we noticed a subtle but profound change in the air between us. we'd stood on the edge of a precipice at one point, but then a door appeared before us, and we were walking toward it, hand in hand.

fast forward from there to the holidays. family comes to visit, and we go to visit family. at some point, there is yelling, hurt feelings, tears, frustrated attempts to understand one another, and one long, very important conversation where once again i realized that i'd been keeping someone i love on the hook for things they didn't even know they'd done. my gaping maw of a desire to be seen and understood for who i am had turned into an ugly demand to "give me what i want--or else." the desire to forgive and freaking let it go began to well up within me. there was a lot to let go of, and i didn't know how to do it, but i did know that i wanted to release this person from the heavy, dark weight of my disappointment and disapproval. why would i want to saddle someone with that?

during this time, "coincidentally," i was reading george eliot's novel adam bede. adam's father, an alcoholic who continually left his son to bear the responsibility of the family business and to care for his needy mother, dies early on in the story. adam wrestles with his anger toward his dad and regret for what could have been, and eliot writes, "when Death, that great reconciler, comes, it is never our tenderness we repent of, but our severity."

that sentence shot through me like an arrow. how terribly severe i'd become! severe, judgemental, critical, angry, bitter--these are not the words i want to describe me. it was painful to realize that in many respects, they did. and this posture that i had toward these people that i truly do want to love was hurting them. hurting me, too, now that i think of it.

the long process of repentance (which a professor of mine in grad school once defined as "coming home again. . .and again. . .and again. . .and again) began in me over the christmas holidays. Appropriate timing -- the kingdom of God was at hand. the word release kept coming to mind, and the act of releasing my family from my desires-turned-to-demands, to give up all claim that my hopes be fulfilled, left me with the sweet taste of freedom and lightness. there was more space inside me now.

now i'm a month and a half in, and this act of releasing is a bit more difficult than i anticipated. turns out there are multiple layers of things for me to release. but i am learning this: as i begin to let go of my demands to be seen/heard/understood/valued, etc., and release others from this enormous pressure, Jesus is, in turn, releasing me from the snarled up mess of my sin.

as thomas keating says in his book invitation to love, "all we have to do is open our minds and hearts and let go."