Our topic this morning: Summer Surrender 2026. As I was watching outdoor pools going up, I remembered that almost every summer, Larry Morris would speak on spiritual Surrender, comparing the process to learning to swim by first daring to float on your back, then discovering the water will actually hold you up, if you let it. You give way, and let the water hold you, while you float. In surrender, we let Life, the Larger Life, the Transcendent Life, the Current of Life, God, hold us, hold all our parts together, lead us, carry us. The idea is in spiritual surrender, there is a new ease of being, a sense of belonging in this time and this place. Wherever you find yourself right now, if your are struggling, surrender ends the struggle. Thinking of all this, I had to add 2026 to my title, because Summer Surrender, 2026 mode, is...complicated. It's a way of saying let's calibrate to the times in which we live, knowing the collective upheavals of this year and knowing we are on the threshold of further change. It is "Summer time and the living is easy"/vs. the gnawing sense of pressure, and upheaval. How do you see the world right now? If you reach toward a spiritual universe, a just and kind and forgiving universe, you find it. If you reach into doom and gloom, and everyone fending for themselves, you find it. So the first layer here of summer surrender is a truthfulness from your own context, and giving yourself permission to find a spiritual space of ease. Summer Surrender 2026 is still a call to Spiritual Surrender as our response.
Let's look, though, at 2026 summer stressors for a moment. Instead of easy floating on the water, we can be bombarded by floating fears, stress and anxiety. I'm thinking of A.I., healthcare, midterm elections, climate shifts--I keep getting notices about El Nino this year. Sometimes we have this layered effect--trauma (fires) (air quality) immigration fears (ICE) financial fears, weather shifts, escalating housing costs, while what we are really seeking is is faith and trust. A.I. can be a source of floating fear. News this last week across the U.S. included fire pollution from Canada, severe flooding in Texas, extreme heat in California. We can deal with community areas, but when you become aware, through news flashes of simultaneous alarms across the country and the globe, the commutative affect can be overwhelming. It's difficult to find a balanced perspective. In the past community served as a safety net and support. Here we are online, not the same as traditional community, but we do connect. Connections with others does matter. The field of Spiritual Surrender includes human support.
When I was chief resident at UNM mental health center, I had the opportunity to escort Jerome Frank,Professor, and Psychiatrist at John Hopkins, around campus. He was there to be interviewed on the University radio in support of the anti-nuclear movement that peaked during the late 70's and early 80's. He was one of the founders the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an activist in very intense times. He had studied in Germany during the rise of Nazism, and he served as a military psychiatrist in the Pacific when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. His book Persuasion and Healing is a classic. In this brief time together, he shared with me the power of activism as the antidote to collective and individual fear and despair. Doing something, taking action, rather than collapsing in fear, promotes resilience. Do something. I am putting that "do something" in a spiritual context. It may seem like a contradiction, to talk about taking action while using a metaphor of floating buoyancy and surrender. But this summer surrender is about giving way to what you are given to do/be when the stress level escalates. You can't personally solve the world's problems, or what we label and perceive as problems. But you can participate. You can belong. You can surrender to doing what is yours to do. (Susan Nettleton)
Poetry from today's talk: https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/W/WaltersDorot/TheySpeak/index.html https://sevengoodthings.com/be-ground-be-crumbled-so-wildflowers-will-come-up-where-you-are-youve-been-stony-for-too-many-years-try-something-different-surrender-poem-jalaluddin-rumi/ https://www.graceguts.com/poems-by-others/why-i-am-happy https://sacredpoetryproject.com/this-only/