On Submission

I often bristle at the seeming preoccupation in spiritual and new-age communities with the notion of “surrender” as one’s optimal stance toward life and world. While acknowledging that words can mean different things to different people, in our Western culture, surrender commonly implies helplessness, failure, impotence, resignation, a duality: winner/loser, dominance/submission – not exactly qualities that represent the best of which we capable. (… and too often it is accompanied by an exhortation to then hand over one’s allegiance or one’s money to some philosophy, guru, or leader.)

Whether from God or nature, we each are gifted with a life for which we have the opportunity, if not the mandate, to do the best we can with it. Certainly, at various stages of life, we benefit by receiving training and guidance from the experiences of others. Yet at some point it is appropriate to forge one’s own unique path. That’s why you were born a “you” and not someone else. To those who would focus on “submission”, I suggest there are other concepts or metaphors consistent with the original intent that can serve more constructively. For example:

– The events of life flow like a river – better to swim with the current than to try to change the river’s course.

– Life is like a symphony – the music comes from playing in harmony with the current composition.

– Life is like a game, with certain rules/principles of play. Sometimes rules can be “creatively interpreted”, but you can’t play Parcheesi by the rules of Yahtzee.

I know many people are uncomfortable with total responsibility for their lives and at least part of the time would prefer to be led. Yet to completely turn one’s “life and will” over to another, I believe, dishonors the gift we’ve been given. The spiritual tradition I was raised with suggests that humankind was created “in the image of God”. However, the Classical Hebraic word “tselem”, translated as “image”, also refers to a representative image or figure – and therefore might be interpreted “as the image of God”. Perhaps this is an instruction to take up one’s role as a representative agent of the divine – to be the face of the one who is presently beyond comprehension.

Whether due to a divine mandate or simply an evolutionary trajectory toward complexity, I believe we are ultimately called upon to mature toward the status of responsible, proactive, compassionate agents of the life-process, and not mere “surrendered” vessels.

But that’s my story. Yours may be different.

Image: From Wikimedia Commons. Court sitting during Qing dynasty, 1889. Author: unknown.