Surrender

I came to the monastery again for my thirteenth summer in the Colorado high country.  It seems that I have brought with me the theme of "surrender."  Whatever plans I have to do this or that, I hope to not make my agenda the center of my summer.  I have some likes and preferences, but I know from past monastery experience, that if my agenda becomes central, I will make no spiritual progress.  Stuff will happen this summer, for which I did not plan.  This stuff will be God at work to test my resolve to surrender to Spiritual Power, and not my need to control, manage fear, or be self-centered.  Already there have been some surprises and some past dysfunctional thinking on my part.  I keep trying to let it go.  People ask me what will I be "doing" up here.  What will my work be.  It will be surrender.  This is plenty enough work for someone like me.  Prayers, if you are a praying person.  Then again, some people think I am just on a vacation.  Vacation is where I successfully get my way.  Monasteries are no vacations.