CARRY ON
My first memory is of my father. It was a little over a month before my third birthday. He woke me in the middle of the night, with an air of hushed excitement, and carried me across the street to my grandmother’s house, wrapped in my bedspread. Years later, I pieced things together with my parents and was able to identify it as the night my little brother Joseph was born.
It’s a lovely first memory: being carried by my Dad.
The beginning of my story, the story I tell myself about myself. The first line of my personal narrative is: “Daddy carried me to Grandma’s.” I imagine that our earliest recollections tend to become cornerstones of identity. And I appreciate how fortunate I’ve been that this is how it all started for me.
It makes me wonder, though: why have I, subsequently, for most of the rest of my life, completely resisted the idea of being carried by anyone or anything?
I grew up to idealize self-sufficiency, resourcefulness, personal empowerment, and self-expression. These became some of my core values.
I believe that our sense of freedom is directly proportional to how much responsibility we’re willing to take for our lives. I believe that our creativity is tied to our commitments and our willingness to hold ourselves accountable.
For sure, I’m also a staunch believer in our inter-dependency and shared responsibility. I stand for caring for each other and for the common good. I’m all for it, especially when I can position myself as the one doing the caring. I’m pretty good at being the one doing the standing. I stand for us, on my own two feet!
Being carried, though…? Accepting help from others…? Even though my story started out that way, I’m terribly out of practice.
So the spiritual idea of “surrender” is pretty challenging. Makes me itchy just thinking about it. It chafes both as a concept and a practice.
I know there’s a breakthrough to be had in here. I’m pretty sure the fact that I’m uncomfortable with being carried and accepting help means that there’s some beautiful life lesson to be found in letting go. But it’s annoying how epiphanies so often hide out up in our avoidance strategies. I wish for once I could have a breakthrough in something I already know I’m excellent at, like controlling everything — sheesh.
As a point of theology, I usually try to untangle my hangups around “letting go and letting God” by vigorously differentiating this from anything like “giving up.” I’ve got to be really really clear about that to which I am surrendering. I can only do it if I specify that it’s to my Own Highest Self. It’s definitely not submission. It is, rather, an inward embrace of the Great Truth Of My Own Being. Hey, leaps of faith are fine as long as I’m leaping into my own ideals and aspirations.
But, then, is that really a leap? Is it really faith?
Dang it, I’ve been side-stepping surrender all along. Fighting tooth and claw to preserve the illusion of self-sufficiency. “Surrendering to myself” is pretty silly. I’m only fooling myself.
And fooling myself in a way that becomes an even more vehement control-freakishness. Because if I’m only willing to surrender to my Highest Self, then that means the first order of business is to get busy polishing and perfecting myself. First, I’ve got to make myself worthy — worthy of my own surrender. Ugh.
New Thought approaches to the Divine can feed into this sort of type-A mind-game.
We’re pretty good at conceiving God as the heart of our own hearts — groovy. It’s also easy to love God as an abstract Infinity that includes everyone and everything — no problem.
But I mostly reject the idea of God as a parental figure. Really, it’s only on Father’s Day and Mother’s Day, maybe around Christmas, that I ever really even consider it. And even then, it’s only in a vague, metaphorical way…
Of course I understand why people are turned off by the idea of a bearded patriarch in the sky — it’s definitely regressive and maybe offensive. The father archetype, whether benevolent or wrathful, is always loaded and may even seem dangerous. I also get that not everyone had such an excellent Dad as I did, so the idea resonates very differently for each of us.
This Father’s Day, though, I’m wondering if maybe I’ve been missing something.
Look, I’m not suggesting that there’s anything wrong with rebelliousness of spirit. We don’t need any outside permission or approval to be our rock-star selves, boldly exercising our powerful, individualized, creative authority. We are here to flex and grow our strengths, gifts, talents, and passions, and the wisdom of our own experience. God as our innermost hearts and God as an incomprehensible Allness are both excellent ways of thinking about it.
AND, at the same time, I’m glimpsing a sweetness that might be available in the idea of God the Father — perhaps a feeling like being carried.
I also think that this sweetness might be the very thing that I ache for when I feel like life is too much and I don’t know if I can muster the strength to handle it anymore on my own. Right now, for instance…
I can’t wait to see you this Sunday, June 15. We’ll have amazing musical guests — Salt Road is returning with their Middle Eastern style and with belly-dancing! XO, Drew
©2025 Drew Groves
