Anger or surrender?

Can I give up being right?

It seems strange to mulling over personal struggles with spirituality and pain whilst the world adjusts to the outcome of the US election and devastation continues in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan.  But there is a relevance: I do believe that when we find peace inside ourselves in some way, we add, in an infinitesimal manner, to the store of hope and love in the world. So, I am offering this one anyway.

“I have been watching the glorious sunsets of the last few days” a Friend ministers in meeting.

“I feel the beauty of the setting sun and feel the day ending, finding myself actively surrendering to the reality of the day coming to a close, as the sun sinks below the horizon, as if I am offering myself up”

“Humpf.” I felt rather than said. “Hell no. That’s not me. There is no way I'm surrendering to the reality of this all.  Accepting the end of my marriage… well maybe. But not surrender.”

Acceptance is one thing, but surrender is something else entirely.  It means letting go of being right.  It feels like it would mean letting go of my anger, the anger that has been sustaining me over the last month, giving me the determination to keep writing, the energy and focus to keep working.  I have accepted what is happening, and got on with all the practicalities of ending a long relationship.  Acceptance is helping, and doesn’t remove or deny my feelings.  Acceptance has helped me to tell people, sharing my grief, worries and anger, and accepting their generous and loving support.  But surrender?

Surrender feels like giving up, but I don't think that’s what the Friend meant.  His Ministry stayed with me as a question, percolating down inside me.  I surrender means a place with no rights or wrongs, would I have to step down from the moral high ground? Am I prepared to let go of being right?

In the next Meeting for Worship (what Quakers call our Sunday morning service) I find myself mulling over this question.  I try to imagine what it would be like not to be in the right, to let go of this.

My thoughts are interrupted by a Friend reading from Romans, the gist of which is a rather frustrated Paul telling the group of early Christians to remember that they are all human, they all have different gifts and each of them are equally valuable.

I can feel a link, not directly, but close enough to feel that this Ministry is here to help me answer my question.

What would happen if I stepped down from my moral high ground? What would I lose?  Would it mean that I was to blame instead?  This fear rises up to meet me.  But no.  There is a space between right and wrong, two people (and possibly three) whose behaviours have contributed to a difficult situation.

And that was the thing: can I acknowledge my contribution to this situation?  As I sit with this, I become more able to recognise what I know, that I could have been braver in the past, I could have pushed for us to talk, to get help from a couples counsellor a few years ago as we looked towards our empty nest and the relationship we might want to have with each other.   I was afraid to do this and I regret that. It might not have helped and it might not have changed what is happening now, but it was something I could have done, my contribution.

And with that clarity I found my smile returning, a sense of lightness in my body.  I still felt the emotional impact of the difficult situation, alongside my determination and sadness.  But my resolution was shifting, not just to ensure my survival, and that of my son, but to do my best to ensure that we as a family moved forward into our new shape in a constructive way.

It isn’t about forgiveness – that seems absent, and almost unhelpful in the way it implies wrongdoing and possibly a pedestal to stand on whilst dispensing it.  It seems as if, somehow, supported by the spiritual energy of the meeting, both through the spoken word and the weaving of the unspoken listening, waiting silence, I have surrendered in some way.  And I don't feel as if I have lost anything. I have a new lightness, and balance.  My sleep is slowly improving.  I don't feel so desperately angry so much of the time, and my husband and I can talk about the situation, acknowledge the pain and our next steps forward.

Have I surrendered and come through on the other side?  I asked the Friend who had started this all off with his sunsets.

“Surrender, as I feel it, is a body thing: about heart and soul.  I feared I would lose myself, but no. It was as if I stepped through – and found myself on the other side, clearer, lighter and still very much myself”

It would be easy to dismiss this as talking about words, but it so much more than this: a visceral sense of being human, with all the pain and suffering that this entails, and the shifts that are possible when we allow ourselves to be supported.  I can still feel angry, fearful, utterly hurt and awash with pain, but I also feel a really profound spiritual support, alongside human kindness, and that has shifted something deep inside me, for which I am profoundly grateful.