In my uninformed opinion the best Beatles song ever is Let It Be. Let me Be. Let them Be. Whatever or whomever “they” are.
My husband showed up to me in the most impractical and side swiping manner bringing a gigantic wrecking ball to my very introverted, nerdy and pretty boring life. He was a shock to my system. He’s loud. I mean loud! He moves through the world making noise with just his living. He came carrying whole sets of luggage from his past as did I. We fought and fought and fought, sometimes with each other but all the time for our marriage. The more I let him be, the more he was able to be everything I want, need and more.
My daughter sprang from my womb a calm and resolute force of nature in that if she doesn’t want to comply she simply doesn’t. That mountain ain’t moving come hell or high water. I had no idea what to do with a child who calmly and quietly said no and meant it. I had no idea what to do with what I call the Jell-o kind of kid, the more you push them the more they simply bounce and roll around you. I was clueless and knew it so I did what I could do: love her, defend her and give her lots of space. Fortunately that worked out just fine. The more I let her be, the more she was able to be herself without apology or explanation.
I found myself today again grieving the place where I feel like I grew up, Ft. Collins, Colorado. I raised my daughter there, had a career, loved, lost and earned 2 college degrees there in spite of being a high school dropout. Every time I whine about Old Town and the Trailhead my mother and daughter remind me that the Ft. Collins I’m grieving died long before I left it. In holding on to that grief I wasn’t letting a place be what it is now. It is a different place entirely and by applying the same principles I do to people to this, my adopted hometown, I can finally let it go. I can let it be.
So can I now make the ultimate stretch to allow the current political situation to be? Is it possible to let it be as it is, to face the reality? The true-true? It is not only possible but imperative and this is why:
I can only fight a good fight if I am open-minded, well-educated and figuratively armed.
To be open-minded, well-educated and figuratively armed I must be rested and in tune with the Divine Beloved.
To be rested and in tune with the Divine Beloved I have to stop fighting reality.
To stop fighting reality I have to own the “darker” emotions, allow them expression and honor their energy (feelings are just energy) so that they can flow through and inform me what direction to go next even if that direction is to get very very still for a while.
To own my darker emotions I have to Let. Them. Be. Whatever they are, however they show up and to listen to them for as long as they last, without judgement; mine or yours.
And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
And though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Let it be, let it be.
Yeah there will be an answer, let it be.