Let Them Go!

A geologist at Harvard once was giving a lecture entitled “The Expanding Universe.” In it, he pointed out that there are galaxies greater than our “Milky Way” speeding outward — moving away from us faster than the speed of light. This means that we’re losing them. It’s like they’re falling off the edge of the Universe. It is a mind-boggling thing to think about. In the question-and-answer period that followed the lecture, a woman who appeared to be upset by this revelation asked anxiously, “Professor, what are we going to do about all of those galaxies we’re losing?” To which the learned professor quietly replied, “Let them go, ma’am, let them go!”

Some of us find it difficult to let anything go. We want control. We find it challenging to use our gifts responsibly and, at the same time, to let go and allow ourselves to be carried through life by God. It is an inward problem. It is a problem of “hubris.”