Trust, Surrender, and Sacred Activism

By Rev. Ann Wizer

April 2017

The CHI experience has been walking towards heat, not away from it. There has been much joy and love, and just as much discomfort in having to sit with my own stiff beliefs and in seeing how deeply religious institutions have disempowered us by division. I feel we are being called on, right now to erase the lines and to find what is common amongst us and let go of the rest. CHI has helped me to sift the rust from the gold of our faith traditions, and given me more understanding and deeper respect. I’ve had to drop self-limiting beliefs–those voices that tell me to play safe, be quiet, to play small.

We are all so much greater than our small selves. Everyday we wake up in the morning and our small selves rush in. We dress in our clothes and yesterday’s news. We lay out our fears in plain sight where we can keep track of them, but that causes us to live in the places we’re trying to give up, to get away from. I don’t want to live in those places that divide me between who I think I am and what I wish I could be. That is the place between trust and dis-trust. That divide, that dark crack is fertile, it is a place of new growth if I let curiosity replace fear.

Life has been asking me to get curious. It’s not about effort, but choice. Today I vow to be more truly present to my own life. The choice is to drop what doesn’t serve me. That is surrender.

Surrender means to give up, abandon, relinquish. Beautiful word. Come out from hiding. Get out of my own way and dissolve into trust. You might say, “In what?” It doesn’t much matter what you or I call it. Trust isn’t a thing. It’s not solid. It happens moment by moment if we allow it to. Surrender is that allowing. Trust allows me to move from fear to intrigue and wonder. Fear is useless. Fear steals our joy.

Our capacities are huge, so much bigger than we know or are usually willing to face. In our burning world we’ve learned that and none too soon. Exactly what is required of us, of me, and all of us, is to not play small. We need to drop the poisonous thinking of the small Self, of me and mine – because those old comfortable ways are killing us. We need to look to the future or we won’t have one. That is no longer guaranteed. We need to move towards US and WE. And in that I mean all of us – the entire planet.

This ordination is calling me to live my spirituality fully.  It’s challenged me to move away from wanting control to stewardship. To stop playing small, even when it hurts; to get over myself. To stop turning away from discomfort and engage with it, wrestle it. Work with challenges and not run away.

The poet Rilke wrote, “Love and death are the great gifts that we are given to us. Mostly they are passed on unopened.”

I believe we are all alive in one Divine fluid frequency. Sacred life flows through us all

Each of the faith traditions speaks of and sings to a Divinity so great and expansive that it could never be contained in one tradition. They’re each different pathways that lead to the same Divine. Make your life sacred. Hold this mysterious life as an exquisite masterpiece. Make all sacred – all that we understand and all that we don’t. Our bodies, our lives, our eyes, sunlight, our hands, our food, dirt, even our frustrations and boredom: all is sacred. Make it all sacred and love it fully. The world is asking, begging for love.

Trust. Paint the walls with it! Accept that we are change and let wild seeds grow in the dark places, because we cannot see what we continually choose to resist.

We all have fear. Curiosity is the opposite of fear. We are now being called into transformation. Our world is dying and we must at this moment wake up and get out of the coma we’ve been in on this suffering planet. Personal and moral outrage is not enough to change us. We need nothing less than for this transformation to begin with ourselves. This is sacred activism.

I thank CHI . I am so grateful to all of our amazing brave teachers and to CHI Founder, Rev. Gina Rose Halpern, whom have all given themselves to creating this fabulous, expanding program. I thank my sweet cohort for shepherding me through these days and all those ordained clergy who have gone before me. I thank my family for their support. This is a beautiful community of hope, unity, grace and harmony and I am honored to be a part of it.