Letting go and pressing on

Are you one of those people who can’t seem to get on with your life because there is something you are holding on to?

There are all kinds of things that we hold on to. We can hold on to mistakes we have made and feel guilt and regret about. We may be holding on to some wrong we have experienced that has left us feeling angry and resentful. Late at night we gather the bits and pieces of our life together and sort through them. We find there things that may have hurt others and as a result we are estranged from some other person that was once important to us. I don’t know of a single person who if they had their life to live over again would not do some things differently. That is certainly true for me. There are thing I would have done differently as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend, or as a son. But as the poet Omar Khayyam said, “The moving finger writes; and, having writ, moves on: nor all your piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.” What’s done is done, and there is a point when one must accept it as such.

One of the more damaging things I used to see as a counselor was the number of people who had left home with some unfinished business related to a parent. Apparently unable to finish it, they carry it with them and it is often a heavy burden. Their recollections of parents are dark with memories of being unappreciated or treated judgmentally and made to feel as if they did not quite measure up to some parental expectation. They left home with out the parental blessing they longed for or with the burden of parental disapproval.

Years ago I worked with a couple who were trying to savage their marriage after an affair by the husband. The husband was deeply sorry and ashamed of his behavior, but all his wife seemed able to talk about was her anger toward him. Her frequent criticism of him was that he was just like her father. He wasn’t any good and neither was her father. Finally I said to her, “I don’t believe all of your anger is about your husband. I think much of it is about your father. I believe you need to talk to your father and find some ways to come to terms with your anger toward him.”

“Talk to my father? I can’t talk to my father!”

“Wrong word,” I said. “You won’t talk to your father.”

When she came in the following week, she announced that she had contacted her sisters and they were going to Atlanta to talk to their father.

Everything was not resolved by the visit, but at least she had been able to tell her father about her hurt and anger related to him. She had expressed her anger where it should have been expressed. After that she and her husband were able to work out how they planned to rebuild their marriage.

When they concluded their counseling, I felt positive and hopeful about them and about their marriage. I was not wrong. Every Christmas since then I have received a Christmas card from them. In the last one there was picture of them with their three children. I continue to be proud of them.

In the book of Philippians, the apostle Paul said, “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on…”

Of course I remember the admonition that says, “Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.“ Because we let go of some painful memory of something that has happened in the past does not mean that we have not learned from it. We learn from it. We let go of it. We move on.

There are many things that, if I had them to do over, I would do differently. But that is not a choice I have. My choices are about what I will do in the future. I can keep on doing the same things or I can do things differently. According to Alcoholics Anonymous, doing the same thing with the expectation it will turn out differently is insanity. I can hold on to the memories of past failure, hurts and mistakes, or I can let go of them and move on.

Let go of your past failures and hurts. Your life will be lighter and brighter, and you will make the world a lighter and brighter place to live.

Dr. Eichelberger is a retired minister and lives on top of a mountain near Saluda and Tryon. For fifteen years he was in private practice as a marriage and family counselor. Before his retirement Dr. Eichelberger was a Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and a Clinical Member of The American Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. If you have a concern you would like addressed, send your question to hughle2@aol.com.

Goodbye Francis

Early in the evening of Aug. 26, I received a call from someone at Mepkin Abbey. The person, who did not identify herself, told me that Father Francis Kline, Abbot of Mepkin Abbey, had died at 5:30 that afternoon. I was not surprised. I knew that the end for Francis was near.

The person also told me that I was invited to the funeral mass that would be held on Tuesday, Aug. 28.

Francis had fought a good fight against his cancer but it finally had taken him away. He was only 57 years old. He had done everything he could to keep going, but the leukemia that had ravaged his body was stronger than he was. He had spent nearly two years at Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York. When they told him that there was nothing more they could do, he told them he was ready to go home. He was ready to go home to Mepkin and spend his final days with the Brothers of Mepkin. He had no idea how much longer he would live, but until the very end he spent much of his time tending to the work of the Abbey. Near the end he was able to have visit with his parents and two brothers. While his parents were there he led them in a renewal of their wedding vows in the church.

I was able to visit Francis several times after he returned from Sloan Kettering. He told me that he was very much at peace with what was happening. I reminded him that he had promised to conduct my funeral, and this meant he would have to get better soon or I would have to die sooner. He told me that if he went first he would see me on the other side. He did go first and I am counting on seeing him on the other side.
The final service each day at Mepkin is Compline. In that service the Brothers pray for a restful night and a peaceful death. As those in attendance leave, they are sprinkled with water from the baptismal font. Usually the person in charge of the sprinkling was the Abbot, Francis.

Because of some health issues of my own, I was not able to attend the funeral mass.
When a monk is buried at Mekin, he is dressed in white vestments.

The body is placed in a simple wooden casket that is in the church during the funeral mass. Following the service the casket is carried to the grave. The body is removed from the casket and buried.

“God grant us a restful night and a peaceful death.”

A friend of mine once said, “It is hard to lose someone you love, but even harder to lose some who loves you. I loved Francis, and I believe he loved me. I will miss him. But my sense of loss and sadness is tempered by a sense of gratitude for the privilege of having known this wonderful man.

One of the many things I learned from Francis was the value of living a life that for a variety of reasons had become more and more marginalized.

I remember telling him one day that I felt I was living more and more on the margin of things. His response: “That’s wonderful!” He told me that living on the margin of life enables someone to see the world from a different perspective. The calling to be a monk is a calling to live a marginal life.

Many people are marginalized in our culture. Old people are marginalized. Poor people are marginalized. In many cases black people are marginalized. We marginalize people when we relate to them only in terms of their function and not in term of their humanity. Rod McKuien wrote a song about a blind veteran in which he asked the question; “Doesn’t anybody know my name?”

If you feel marginalized, don’t run from it. Embrace it. Receive it not as a problem, but as a gift. Receive it as something that allows you to see the world as all the marginalized people in the world see it.

When I was a pastor, people often talked to me about their desire to grow spiritually. They often were not very sure of what was involved in growing spiritually, but they seemed to think it was something they should want to do. Over time I developed a definition of “spiritual growth” that others and I found helpful.

“Spiritual growth happens when we pay attention to where God is at work in our lives and respond to that presence.”

Francis was my spiritual director. While I may be able to find someone else to help me pay attention to where God is at work in my life, I know I will never find another Francis. My wish for you is that you can find such a person to walk beside you in your journey. In that relationship you will certainly find a blessing, and you will more and more become a blessing to those around you.


Dr. Eichelberger is a retired minister and lives on top of a mountain near Saluda and Tryon. For fifteen years he was in private practice as a marriage and family counselor. Before his retirement Dr. Eichelberger was a Fellow in the American Association of Pastoral Counselors and a Clinical Member of The American Association of Marriage and Family Counselors. If you have a concern you would like addressed, send your question to hughle2@aol.com.