Letting it be

I love musicals - really. And my iPod is loaded with the songs from them. This makes me an extremely annoying person to take road trips with. Consider this your warning.

A couple of months ago I saw the movie/musical "Across the Universe" at the urging of a friend. I really wanted to see it anyway, so it didn't take much urging for me to run out and rent it. I love Beatles songs AND I'm a sucker for guys with accents. My review: it was awesome in the beginning, then got weird, and then was good again.

One of the songs that was featured was "Let It Be." I already have love for this song as I remember the Sesame Street version of it (being "Letter B" sung by actual Muppet beetles). :)

The version sung in this movie was so profound and moving that I found myself crying with emotion. First, the boy's voice is so overwhelmingly pure that it's just a treat to listen to. And then it turns all gospel-ish where a woman is singing...and in that part you hear her pleading to have the things that she's praying for to come to fruition. And all of the sudden her voice is breaking - singing over and over to simply let it be. You can hear the struggle in her voice - the desperate begging.

And that's where I start to lose it...focusing on the repetitive phrase of "let it be" along with the sound of passion, the strength in her voice, as well as the strain of dealing with things that she simply can't understand or deal with. I start to pull that simple phrase inward - dwelling on those words.

Because letting something be is not and has never been my strength. Having a laid back approach to things and accepting the way stuff is does not come naturally to me. Simply letting something that is happening to just BE without trying to twist, turn, or pull it in a different direction...well, that's almost unheard of in my life.

It's through listening to this song that I remember that life doesn't have to be filled with struggles - it's okay to just BE. It's okay to just take a break and breathe.

It's also a good reminder that if it seems to be too much of a struggle to change something, perhaps it doesn't NEED changing. Perhaps I need to pay attention to things that shouldn't be changed, shouldn't be messed with. Perhaps the growth is not in the struggle of taking something from what it was into something it was never meant to be - but rather in me accepting that person, situation, event, or even action.

It reminds me of the original version of the Serenity Prayer, which is my favorite version and in my humble opinion much more profound than the widely accepted version:

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things which should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

I love that...why don't I focus on changing the things that SHOULD be changed - versus the more popular version of changing things that I CAN change. Just because I can change them, doesn't mean I should. Let me ask for grace to accept with calmness the stuff that I simply can't change.

Help me learn to let it be - if only for a little while.