What's mine isn't?

One of my favorite authors is C.S. Lewis. I have read several of his books and though his thought process goes a lot deeper than even mine typically does, I enjoy pulling his quotes periodically when I need something particularly worthwhile to think about rather than typical mundane concerns that fill many of my days. One I came across recently was "Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours." If you can excuse the double negative, this statement carries a lot more meaning than you might speculate at first glance.

Rephrased slightly, it reads "That which is really yours is only what you have given away." It seems a contradictory statement. How can I possess that which I have given to someone else? Do I have to give something and take it back? It certainly doesn't seem like a sound economic policy. It is kind of funny how many of us define ourselves by what we owe. I like my car and my laptop and my camera and I like having a job that allows me to afford them but somehow I don't think that if I gave them away they would still be mine. Perhaps it is my narrow focus on the meaning of giving that makes it hard for me to understand this statement of Lewis' or perhaps I do understand it but prefer to act as if I don't. There is a song that goes "if you love somebody, set them free." While I am not particularly a fan of that song, I think it gets closer to the meaning of Lewis' words than I might like to think. Love cannot flourish when we try to make the person we love live according to our desires and wishes. When we have healthy relationships with others there is a big portion of them that must remain theirs. They aren't us and we aren't them, no matter how long we have been friends and how many mannerisms we have shared through spending time together over the years. As Thomas Merton wrote, "The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” In other words, we cannot love others if we do not give them our love with the freedom to be who they are. We must give to love.

Furthermore, we may claim to love God, but how much of our lives do we withhold from His control? Perhaps it is our career that we are afraid He may ask us to change or our relationships He may want us to subject to his guidance. Perhaps it is that guilt we might harbor from something in our past or a success that we want all the credit for. Maybe it is our hopes and dreams that we fear He will push aside if we let Him. Interesting how fear finds its way in to so many reasons. Often people who seek to control others fear that if they don't, they will be left on their own. Ironically, our selfish nature typically has the same result if we let it rule our lives. We will eventually find ourselves alone. So why is fear such a motivator for so many of us? That may be a question for another posting.