Surrender is the core principle of spiritual growth, but it can be missunderstood as passivity when it is really an active and intentional stance. Detachment and letting go is not a withdrawal but a new form of engagement that springs from an inner freedom.
In the spiritual life there is always a tension between action and contemplation, between withdraw into prayer and service in the world. But this is a false dichotomy. The deeper the self-surrender and detachment we are led into, the greater the call to action, justice, and mercy. Detachment does not remove the imperative to love, but set us free love completley.
The Holy Spirit leads us further into our human nature, and draws us deeper into communion with others. It pulls us out from the isolation of ideas into the duty of love. We are made for community, to serve and be served. As St. John Paul 2 says, “We only discover ourselves in the gift of ourselves”.
In the natural order when something is letting go and dying, it is actively giving life to its surrounding community. The creature who lays down to die in the woods transitions from consumer to consumed, becoming one with the woods, the very fertilizer that fuels new life. We must accept and surrender to life in its fullness and the only way to do this is to love.