Let IT Go!

Please take a moment to get relaxed in your seats. Place your hands in your lap, feet flat on the floor, close your eyes and just relax. Let everything go that is outside of this room. Forget about anything that may have happened to you before you got here this morning. Calm your mind and spirit.
I want you to see yourself outside on a beautiful crisp fall day. The sun is shining through the trees, the birds are singing, it's a perfect day for you to be outside. Looking around, you notice that there are lots and lots of leaves on the ground. You pick up a rake and and begin raking the leaves in a pile. As you rake, you notice that each of the leaves has words written on it. Each one has something from your past - regrets, bad feelings, issues that were never resolved, projects never finished.

As you rake them up, you realize how bad reading each one of them makes you feel. However, you continue to rake them in a pile. Your pile is getting quite large. Suddenly, there is a sharp burst of wind and your leaves scatter. You feel a bit miffed that all of your hard work has been for nothing and you have to start over. You were looking forward to bagging up and getting rid of all those harsh words and ill feelings that you were experiencing with those leaves.

With a deep sigh, you start over. As you continue raking, you feel the ill feelings are once again welling up inside of you. As your pile grows, you start to bag the leaves rather than wait for another burst of wind to destroy your hard work. As you begin bagging them, you start worrying, wandering if you are doing the right thing. What if there is something you need to do to do about those words? What if you should resolve those old issues? All those what ifs.

You continue with your raking and bagging all the while worrying about taking those bags to the curb and leaving them for the trash collector. All those old problems, those words, unresolved issues nagging at you.

But look at what those words represent - old, the past, things that are history. Let them go. Let God take them away. Once you bag them up and set them on the curb, God is the ultimate Trash Collector. He can remove the past and heal all the pain from it. All you have to do is LET IT GO. Release it and walk away from it. Now, pick up all those bags and put them on the curb and walk away. Don't look back. As you walk away, think about how you are feeling? Is the weight gone from your shoulders? Is there a spring in your step? The farther away from those garbage bags you go, the lighter you feel. Keep walking. Once you feel you have left the bags behind you, come back to the here and now and open your eyes.

We'll now end this time of meditation with the Alleluia.


After the Alleleuia, we'll take a few moments to prepare our prayers and offerings.

Alleluia.