GIVING BY SURRENDERING

"Island Breezes", oil,
by Lori McNamara

 As I was watching the wind in the trees beside our house yesterday afternoon, and the trees swaying and sort of surrendering to the wind, it seemed to me they were giving a gift to the wind – giving their loose-limbed suppleness so the wind could work its way through them with ease. It started me wondering if surrendering is, indeed, sometimes like giving, which is perhaps why we use “give in” and “give up” as synonyms. If a serious snowstorm hits, I can simply give in to it, which might mean surrendering and giving my acceptance, even my approval, to the storm, and just sitting back and taking some pleasure in its magnificence. Likewise, if I take on a task and things don’t go precisely my way, I can surrender to the task by giving up my self-assured stubbornness, thus freeing my mind to find new ways to do the work. Of course, surrendering could also be simply a way of ducking a difficult situation, but there are situations, surely, where surrendering could actually be a way of giving, or giving back, to life itself – giving my willingness to it, my acceptance of it, my readiness to do whatever needs to be done to welcome its richness. Perhaps I can learn to be as limber and yielding as trees, and just bend and lean with life instead of opposing it.