On NOT Letting Go

Twelve convictions which I vigilantly hold on to--and seek to creatively express

I read a lot about "letting go." It's an essential part of healthy emotional and spiritual growth. Franciscan Richard Rohr and Henri Nouwen teach this in their writings, which have significantly helped me thus far on my journey.

A lot of spiritual guides laud "letting go." The principle is that only by letting go of something lesser or false can we embrace what is greater. We say “no” to what sabotages and diminishes so we can say “yes” to life and wholeness.

I buy that--and practice it. I've done--and continue to do--a lot of letting go: regrets, hurts, harm, violence, guilt, shame, grievances, grudges, betrayals, childish notions, naivetés, presumptions, prejudices, ideologically-based assumptions, institutionalism, etc. I have no doubt I will continue to undergo what my friend Morris Weigelt calls “blessed subtraction.”

At the same time, I am convinced there are some things of which those of us who profess a call to responsible stewardship of life cannot or should not let go.

Here are twelve convictions of which I have not let go--nor plan to, unless I am mightily persuaded otherwise. In fact, instead of letting go of these, I am drawn to pursue their change or distinction as part of a creative stewardship of the capacities, relationships and opportunities I am given. Instead of resignation into carelessness, release into a nebulous "it's beyond us" activity, or yielding to collectively coercive human agendas (in the name of God or a government's will), I consider a vigilant wrestling with these challenges as part of "working out my salvation with fear and trembling" in this world in this time.

1. I'm not letting go of my God-given ability to make choices about my life, or my ability to choose my responses to things beyond my control that directly and indirectly impact my life.

2. I'm not letting go of what I have learned and continue to discover through diligent study, diverse experience, and contemplative living.

3. I'm not letting go of my sense that working daily with purpose, self-discipline, perseverance and joy is as critical to spiritual vitality as any sabbatical breakthrough or mountaintop experience.

4. I'm not letting go of my sense that all authority needs to be fairly questioned and validated through its reckoning with truth and its service to--and empowerment of--all within its range of margin-seeking and accountability.

5. I'm not letting go of my right to dissent and talk back to those who would presume to "tell it like it is" or try to define reality through their use of power, control, or influence.

6. I'm not letting go of my sense that being faithful to loved ones, friends and vulnerable neighbors is more important than doing what seems expedient for my professional or personal advancement.

7. I’m not letting go of my sense that vigilance against dogmatism and legalism of every sort is necessary for personal spiritual and emotional health, and to check the encroachment of these distortions of reality purveyed through ideologies and institutions.

8. I'm not letting go of my sense that the biblical call to compassion and justice for the poor--not as left-over charity but as a system-challenging and economic and social order-redeeming priority--needs to be lifted up through clear, pointed, and persistent articulation and action.

9. I'm not letting go of my sense that there needs to be vigorous push-back against those who reduce the Christian Gospel to institutional promotion, evangelistic crusades, speculative prophecy, church politics, partisan politics, and success strategies, instead of incarnating in word and deed the liberating kingdom Jesus proclaimed.

10. I'm not letting go of my sense that much of what passes for preaching in churches tends toward shallow, standardized propositions, franchise-reinforcing promotions, ideologically-based diatribes, or borrowed moral-of-the-story messages instead of solid biblical exposition with valid contextualization, and hermeneutics and application--and I'm holding out for the latter as the enduring best practice.

11. I'm not letting go of my sense that predominant "pro-life" positions and single-issue politics have little to do with the overarching and connected biblical value of all humans, all living things and the earth and creation itself, and, if left to be articulated and applied as it currently is, will undermine the integrity of the Word of God.

12. I’m not letting go of my sense that redemptive love can be expressed and genuine community can be found in unlikely, unorthodox people and situations, and that grace can be read and revealed between the lines of lives considered outside the walls of the church in ways which don't seem to be recognized on the inside.

John Franklin Hay

Indianapolis, Indiana

Final Push

For students and faculty near the end of the school year

Toward the end of the semester
everyone is weary, tired
from the long haul since January.
It’s finally May, but three weeks
stretch out before students and
faculty like a daunting gauntlet that
must be run.

Brains are saturated with
facts and formulas and
literary analyses.
How much of this information
will sufficiently resurface
during Finals?
And will it take root as insight,
connection, knowledge, depth—
growth?

Faculty nerves are frayed.
Teaching souls are searching
for evidence of comprehension
and mastery in students on
subjects caringly taught. 

In a few weeks, the course
will be complete and
all will cross the line
exulting or staggering or
just relieved.

There will be a time to relax,
look back and reflect, but,
for now, the challenge is
to press on—focus, dig deep,
and strive to finish

the semester with
a bit of grace.

John Franklin Hay

2025

Indianapolis, Indiana

Mother's [Peace] Day

The original Mother's Day Declaration wasn't your typical Hallmark card greeting for mom

Contrary to popular presumption, Mother’s Day wasn’t created in a conspiracy of greeting card companies and florists. 

Originally called Mother’s Peace Day and organized by abolitionist Julia Ward Howe (author of “Battle Hymn of the Republic”) in Boston in 1870, it was to be a day dedicated to the eradication of all war. 

Though Mother’s Day is now far afield of its origins, the following declaration written by Howe was its early watchword:

BE FIRM. “Arise, all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be that of water or of tears! Say firmly: ‘We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.’”

TEACHING & TRAINING. “‘Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.’”

DISARM! DISARM! “From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says, ‘Disarm, disarm! The sword is not the balance of justice.’ Blood does not wipe out dishonor nor violence indicate possession.”

NOT CAESAR, BUT GOD. “As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each learning after his own time, the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.”

CALL FOR ASSEMBLY. “In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.” (

Source: Bruderhof, Wikipedia

John Franklin Hay 
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA 

Just Another Race?

“You must treat this track with respect or it will bite you.” 

So said 1969 Indianapolis 500 winner and million-times “almost winner” Mario Andretti to Formula 1 driving ace Arie Luyendyk when he came to Indianapolis as a rookie in 1985. Luyendyk went on to win the race in 1990 and 1997.

Gripped by the aura of the Indianapolis 500 several years ago, the following piece came together for me. Perhaps the poem makes sense only to those who have lived within the gravitational pull of the Brickyard for a lifetime.

I recently read noted native Indianapolis author John Green’s public letter in tribute to the Indy 500 and I remembered this 2007 piece—my own tribute to The 500.

Every year brings fresh stories of victory and heartbreak. A few well-resourced teams tend to dominate the month of practices and qualifying. But on race day, it’s anybody’s win for the taking. The best have lost here. The unexpected have had a celebratory drink of milk in Victory Lane. 

The average speed for qualifying will always be the fastest of any auto racing series. Indianapolis-based Sam Schmidt Racing, owned and operated by a former Indy racer who was mangled and permanently paralyzed in an IndyCar crash years ago, will have competitive cars qualify. And there is always the local, ever-hopeful Ed Carpenter. 

There are older and younger drivers who have mortgaged everything to get into the Indy 500. They should not be here. But here they are, choking back tears as they get one more chance to drive in—and win—“The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.”

What is the mystique of this oval,
this ribbon of banked asphalt
that it winds its way into
the hearts and hopes of
many a would-be conqueror?

Is this not merely pavement,
One more course to be driven,
One more track to be subdued?
And is not Indy just another race?

Why, then, are the greatest
not considered so until they have
proven their mettle here?
Why do the sport’s most promising
strive a lifetime to win The 500?

Once run, Indy asserts a
greater grip on its pursuers.
It shadows their other victories.
It haunts their off-track pursuits.
It lures them back to its graceful sweep.

Other races simply mark the calendar
as tests and rehearsals for another
chance at The Brickyard.
Only the very swiftest qualify here
and only a select few win.

Here, May turns men into boys,
turns boys into speed demons—

and women into winged warriors.
Indy defies anyone to call it “just another race,”
but honors all who offer due respect.

John Franklin Hay

Indianapolis, Indiana

Can You Hear Me Now?

I’m now wired and I can hear much better

I’m now sporting hearing aids. A pretty sleek set. And they’re helping me hear significantly better.

Jodi has been urging me for a few years to get my hearing checked. Lots of “what did you say?” I mentioned this to my physician at my free annual preventive care physical (thanks, Obama!) and they wrote me a referral to an audiologist.

But it’s when I started substitute teaching off and on in February that I really noticed my challenge. I could barely hear students who were less than 10 feet from me in a classroom. That convinced me to make an appointment.

Sure enough, testing revealed my high end hearing is seriously compromised, compounded by tinnitus (ringing, roaring). At 65, I’m officially hearing impaired.

So, I’m now wired. I can hear much better. And for that I am grateful. 

With an iPhone app, I can control hearing in diverse sound environments. I can tune in to one person or many—or shut out all y’all! Ha!

Whatever stigma wearing hearing aids once held for me or holds for others, I no longer experience it. Before he finally got hearing aids, my dad would often sit unresponsive amid living room conversations. My mom resisted having hearing aids and would conveniently “forget” to wear them and frequently “lose” them. Was it a generational thing? 

Not me. Instead of missing out on parts of casual or critical conversations, I’m tuned in and engaged. And that feels great!

A Prayer for the Season of Easter

by Wilfred L. Winget

O Mighty, Holy Breath of God
On this glorious Day of Resurrection

Blow open all the shutters of our minds
bursting the barriers of
prejudice and pride
insensitivity and sloth
ignorance and fear
stretching wide our vision of
what you are doing
where you are working
in our fascinating
exasperating world.

Blow wide the doors of our hearts
impelling us outward to
the lonely and loveless
the angry and hopeless
the empty and faithless
as ready instruments
of your Grace.

Blow up our lungs to keep us shouting
Yes to Faith in the face of fear
Yes to Hope in defiance of despair
Yes to Love in spite of apathy
Yes to Life in the teeth of death

Through Christ, the Living One,
Our Lord.
Amen


This poem/prayer was given me by Morris Weigelt, Ph.D., who taught New Testament at Nazarene Theological Seminary. Wil Winget was his brother-in-law. Wil taught at Spring Arbor University and died a painful death after a long bout with cancer. This poem was written amid that portion of his life's journey.

I have posted this poem most Easters for about 25 years.

May this prayer be answered in and through each of us.

Good Friday: Seven Reflections

Good Friday invites our own life responses


“Christmas and Easter can be subjects for poetry, but Good Friday, like Auschwitz, cannot. The reality is so horrible, it is not surprising that people should have found it a stumbling block to faith".

 -- W.H. Auden



Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?

Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;

Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky,
A horror of great darkness at broad noon--
I, only I.

Yet give not o’er,
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock. 

-- Christina Rossetti



“Given is the word. Given publicly, on the first Good Friday, on a hill, in the sight of all, was the visible demonstration of the only permanent way to overcome evil. Human nature demands something more enduring than the unquiet equilibrium of rival powers.” 

-- Muriel Lester

“The symbol of the cross in the church points to the God who was crucified not between two candles on an altar, but between two thieves in the place of the skull, where the outcasts belong, outside the gates of the city. It does not invite thought but a change of mind. It is a symbol which therefore leads out of the church and out of religious longing into the fellowship of the oppressed and abandoned. On the other hand, it is a symbol which calls the oppressed and godless into the church and through the church into the fellowship of the crucified God.”  

 -- Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God

One of the paradoxes of what Christians call Holy Week is that what is being taken is being given. "No one takes my life from me; I lay it down."



"...Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all."

 -- Isaac Watts

Holy one,
shock and save me with the terrible goodness of this Friday,
and drive me deep into my longing for your kingdom,
until I seek first
yet not first for myself,
but for the hungry
and the sick
and the poor of your children,
for prisoners of conscience around the world,
for those I have wasted
with my racism
and sexism
and ageism
and nationalism
and regionalism
for those around this mother earth and in this city
who, this Friday, know far more of terror than of goodness,
that, in my seeking first the kingdom,
for them as well as for myself,
all these things may be mine as well:
things like a coat and courage
and something like comfort,
a few lilies in the field
the sight of birds soaring on the wind,
a song in the night,
and gladness of heart,
the sense of your presence
and the realization of your promise
that nothing in life or death
will be able to separate me or those I love,
from your love
In the crucified one who is our Lord,
and in whose name and Spirit I pray.
Amen. 

-- Ted Loder in "Guerillas of Grace"