A TIME FOR SURRENDER
MOVING TO CRETE also means becoming interested in local customs — and that includes religion.
The Holy Week before Easter on Crete involves daily church services in the Greek Orthodox church here in the village. It’s Good Friday. The church bells are ringing, calling me. I walk up to the church in the center of the village, high up on the mountain. The Gospel is being read. I hear the resonance of the voices, the reading of Scripture, the incense. I see the women beside and in front of me in the church. Reverent, yet not entirely — people are chatting and greeting one another. Children skip in, kiss the icons, and skip right back out again. The doors are open: outside I hear playing children, talking and laughing adults, the roar of passing motorcycles. These outer sounds blend with those inside the church. I hear the liturgy, though I don’t understand it. The ongoing chant of the reading leaves no space for thought, and I find myself drifting into a kind of trance. That doesn’t feel pleasant to me.
Thankfully, the service ends and I step outside. I feel the wind on my skin, hear the birds singing, and walk back down the hill toward home. I return to myself.
What is it that keeps me from surrendering to that trance-like experience?
It has to do with my awareness. I want to surrender — but not at any cost. Losing myself is not the same as surrender.
What is surrender?
After trying with all your might to control a situation — and failing — you might allow yourself to stop resisting, stop fighting, stop fleeing. Sometimes it can feel like surrender is the same as giving up.
But it’s not giving up — it’s handing over.
Not quitting, but surrendering — consciously, and with trust.
To whom, and to what?
You surrender your will, your self-determination. The steering wheel of ideas you cling to, your desires, your need to control timelines, your expectations. You hand it over to a higher power — and that power is around and also within yourself.
Does that mean you're powerless? Stuck in helplessness? Absolutely not.
Surrender is not something passive.
It’s more of a conscious decision to stop trying to control the situation. Control is what the ego wants. Not wanting to control is something more. It’s wanting — in the form of letting go, surrendering. So yes, still wanting, but wanting differently.
There are people — and I’m certainly one of them — who find it easier to surrender to the beauty and softness of the world than to the stubbornness of their surroundings. I’ve written about that in previous posts.
Buying a house or a car here on Crete isn’t easy. The bureaucracy, the casual attitude toward agreements — it takes some getting used to if you come from the Netherlands. I tried everything to gain clarity and control over the situations I mentioned. I became impatient, angry, sad, and so on. Then I realized none of that was helping — and that it would be better for me to surrender to the Cretan culture. To surrender, because I can’t bend things to my will.
What an ego exercise that is!
And now, as I write this, another word comes to mind:
Accepting
Again, an active verb. To find peace in. I’m not being rendered powerless — I choose to accept. My ego is allowed to rest and surrender to a higher power. Some call it Fate, Karma, God, the game of the angels, or coincidence. For me, that higher power is present, and things do not happen by chance.
When I surrender to the beauty and love that surround me, it feels natural. I become aware of the greatness of it all. But even when I can surrender in the face of a difficult situation, that higher power is still there.
Sometimes solutions appear from the most unexpected corners. Better and different than I could have orchestrated myself.
Back to Good Friday.
Christ became angry with his Father. “Why have You forsaken me?”
After that, he was able to accept his fate and cleared the way for the miracle of resurrection with the words: “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.”
He surrendered his ego.
"Thy will be done" is a moment of surrender. And it doesn’t happen without the I being fully present. It’s an active act of will — not a trance in which the self dissolves.
Quite the paradox really:
You surrender — and at the same time, you are fully present to receive.
A mystery of will, indeed.