We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. - Joseph Campbell

Still a ways from becoming my 2011 Word of the Year, Surrender fell into my consciousness like a pomegranate seed in late fall, while I was reading this blog post by my friend @meganmonique.

Surrender. At first blush, the word brings with it some baggage: it sounds like the position of a weak-willed person, not standing their ground. But viewed through the lens of my Faith in some semblance of Divine Order, Surrender is not at all a position of the weak-willed. It comes from the strength of someone who Does Not Know For Sure, and is okay living with that uncertainty. Trusting in Flow, rather than clashing against, and therefore resisting What Is.

The opposite of faith is not doubt, but certainty. ~Anne Lamott

After reading Megan's post, the word followed me around, dropping itself into my lap at unexpected moments. It was Surrender that spoke to me while reading In Sweet Company by Margaret Wolff, a book about extraordinary women of Faith. The first of these was Sister Helen Prejean, the Catholic nun and outspoken critic of capital punishment who wrote Dead Man Walking. She is also one of my heroes, for embodying Love and Faith. When asked if there was a Golden Rule that the Sisters of her Order followed, Sister Helen answered,

Our Sisters are rooted in the Gospels, but there are two maxims that mean a great deal to us. The first is 'Never leap ahead of grace, but wait for grace and quietly follow with the gentleness of the Spirit of God.' This means that I don't ever have to get cerebral and lay out an elaborate blueprint about how events should proceed. Nor do I have to try to coerce things into happening or push for answers. There's no tension or stress, no anxious anticipation or grasping for control, because I have an organic sense that I will know what to do when the time comes to do it. I simply wait and watch for grace to unfold like the petals of a flower. There is an energy, a dynamic, and a passion in doing this that I could never willfully mandate or create intellectually.

And that is Surrender, wrapped up in Grace.

Shortly thereafter, I read Gabrielle Roth's Maps to Ecstasy, and I began to see Surrender in dance terms: Your life is the rhythm and the beat; listen closely and it will tell your body how to move, bypassing the logic that might impose a design or pattern to your movement. And the dance will dance you. And all will be well.

And that is Surrender, wrapped up in Flow.

To hold, you must first open your hand. Let go. ~Lao Tzu

We live our lives at any given moment in one of three modes: Passive, Controlling or Surrender.

Passive is the place I operated from most in the past five years. Passive is a victim-stance, a place of hopelessness and despair. Life is happening to you, without your consent. And you feel powerless to change what keeps coming at you, fast and furious.

Controlling is the mode we usually enter into when we want to fix our lives and stop being victims. Controlling is the master plan, the blueprint, the To-Do List, New Year's Resolutions. None of which are bad things; but when they are adhered to without considering the Flow of your life, you are simply imposing a rigid structure on your existence, and you fail to adjust for What Is. Without flexibility, you miss the signs along the way that might lead you closer to what your life really needs. You step outside of Flow, unable to function without your Blackberry and faux (or not so faux) perfectionist Type A personality.

And then there's Surrender. Surrender is living in the present moment, having Faith that the future and the past will take care of themselves. It is having a forward intent, but not necessarily knowing each and every step of your path, until the stepping stones present themselves. Which they will, if you are living in Flow, and living in the present moment is the best way to do that. In Flow we cannot help but be moved to action, inspired action, action that will feel somehow pre-ordained or otherwise Perfect. Things fall into place. This is a state of Grace.

And although it is a small thing, I already practice Surrender every time I press publish on this blog, knowing it may not be Perfect with a capital P, but then, that in and of itself is perfect.

Surrender is the compass with which I want to live my life by, in 2011 and beyond. Because it is the very embodiment of the underlying belief I have had all of my life: that there is a Divine Order to things. And it is time to learn to live that Truth, to imprint it onto my very bones, and practice, daily, my Faith.

A life lived in Surrender, what will it look like? I guess I am going to find out. For now, what I expect, besides finding Grace and Flow and being challenged by Faith, is that it will look a little like this:

Vulnerable, but Vital.
Alive and Affirmed.

What will be your steering word in 2011?