Aim
To name significant experiences and accepting the need for letting go, and moving on, in areas of our lives.

Focal Point
A good-sized clear glass bowl, part-filled with water, surrounded by coloured pebbles, differing in size and colour.

Leader's Introduction
Spend a time of quiet reflecting on these words:

For God alone my soul in silence waits, 
from God comes my salvation. (Psalm 62.1)

There are many instances in which experiences of life invite us to let go and move on. Everyone will recognise loss and change, for they touch all our lives, coming in many disguises, in differing shapes and sizes, perhaps like pebbles on a beach. At times when loss and change are significant, what we believe about God may be threatened or strengthened.

Invite people to think and reflect, in a period of quiet, identifying significant times of loss and change in their lives. Offer pointers as examples, avoiding the temptation to cover everything. Pointers might include:

• Letting go of one stage of life to move on to the next.
• Letting go long- and hard-held opinions, principles, values or beliefs.
• Letting go when moving home, church, job or a relationship.
• Letting go when a loved one dies.
• Letting go what life has failed to offer, or shattered dreams.
• Letting go when involved in a serious accident, or when a serious illness is diagnosed.
• Letting go when a minister, deacon or lay-worker moves on.
• Letting go when your church is threatened with closure or is closed.

• Invite people to list several of their own experiences of loss and change, and then to choose just one of some significance, but preferably not one experienced in the last year. Remind the people that experiences of letting go may well evoke responses associated with dying and may include: confusion, bewilderment, vulnerability, fear, anger, fragility, brokenness, and even guilt that we can have such feelings at all.

• Invite people to think and reflect in a period of quiet, revisiting what happened, focusing particularly on feelings. Allow these questions to prompt the recollection and review (a prepared sheet will help).

• What was your situation before the experienced loss?
• What occurred to bring about the loss and change?
• How did you cope? Was it on your own or with help?
• What were your predominant feelings and inner mood?
• What, if anything, did you learn about your relationship with God, and others, through the experience?
• What words or symbols offered an element of hope and reassurance in the loss and change, and aided the letting go to healthily begin again?

• In a period of quiet, invite people to reflect on these questions:

• Is your life currently inviting you to let go, and move on from the old and familiar to the new in some way?
• If so, how might you respond?
• What, if anything, remains unresolved? Take this to God prayerfully.

• When the reflection comes to an end, invite people to inwardly pray for the grace to let go and move on with God. Invite people to select a pebble from the focal point, and symbolically let go of it into the glass bowl. They might let go of: tension, fear, anger, bitterness, resentment, painful memories, regrets and so on, into the water.
• Relaxing in the presence of the upholding love of God, thank God for the growth that can come through the sacrament of letting go.

• In life what sometimes appears to be the end is really a new beginning.
• "Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. Begin it now." (Goethe)

Joyce Rupp, Praying Our Goodbyes (Ave Maria Press).

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