WLSU: Don't Let Go

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11 years ago my family and I walked into a theater and watched what would become one of the most significant movies of the last several decades. Of course I’m talking about Frozen. It became the highest grossing film of that year, the highest grossing animated film up to that point, and singlehandedly re-established the cultural relevance of Disney’s animated movies.

But more important than all that, Frozen brought the song “Let it Go” into the world. Everything else about Frozen’s impact pales in comparison to this. “Let it Go” won an Oscar, a Grammy, and sold nearly 11million copies in one year. Even if you have never seen Frozen you have heard this song. And if you have had a child, grandchild, godchild, or are friends with anyone who has had any of these in the last decade, you know this song. It is impossible to overstate its ubiquity in our culture.

Let me step back for a moment and acknowledge the obvious. Yes, I am still a priest and this is still my religious blog. And yes, I am an adult. And yes, in the midst of some of the most interesting and trying times in recent memory, I am here writing about a Disney movie and one of its songs. Stick with me. Jesus will be here soon.

On the off chance you have no idea what happens in Frozen, let me tell you this very briefly. There are two sisters – Elsa and Anna. Because it’s Disney, they are princesses. And because it’s Disney their parents die tragically very early in the movie. Elsa has magical powers – specifically she can conjure up ice and snow. For the first half of the movie, Elsa hides her powers, convinced that she will be ostracized if people find out what she can do. For years and years, she bottles everything up so tightly that she shuts everyone out. She grows up in utter isolation. At one point she very publicly and very unintentionally shows her powers off, terrifying all who witness it. Horrified, Elsa flees into the wilderness.

And this is when “Let it Go” shows up. “Let it Go” is the song Elsa sings to herself as she realizes she’s done hiding who she is. She sings about her loneliness and how she’s ready to just let go of other people’s expectations, of her own fears of who she is – to let go of everything really – and just be unashamedly and unabashedly herself. It’s a powerhouse of a song. When the screenwriters first heard the demo of “Let it Go”, they realized it didn’t quite mesh with the plot they had been writing up to this point. Elsa was supposed to be the villain. So they changed the entire plot and characters in order to make “Let it Go” fit. And it was worth it. “Let it Go” is the astonishing high point of the movie.

But it’s not the end of the movie. At all. It’s the midpoint. And I think this is essential.

Because it is in fact beautiful that this woman decides to be herself, that she decides to let go of other people’s idea of who she should be. Watching her live into her magic instead of hiding it is exhilarating. The liberation is palpable. It’s one of the reasons the song has resonated with so many people and stayed relevant for so long. At the same time, it quickly becomes apparent that Elsa believes the only way she can be herself is by letting go of every relationship she’s ever had and living only for herself.

But Elsa is not alone, even in her newly conjured ice palace in the wilderness. She is connected to her sister Anna – who loves and misses her, who is ready to love her unconditionally and without reservation or caveat. She is also connected to the kingdom from which she has fled. Her disappearance has sent the whole realm into an eternal winter. Elsa, it turns out, is not actually able to let it all go.

The reasons that “Let it Go” is so beautiful and exciting are the same reasons it cannot be the end of the story: Her sense of freedom and empowerment are intoxicating – they are even necessary for her development – but they are overly simplistic. I can be free so long as I am not accountable to others. I can be myself so long as I shun connection. I can find peace so long as I construct a world that makes sense to me.

I see so much of Elsa in many of us right now – me included. The burden of seeking unity in this country feels unbearable. How can we even pretend that we are in this together? As I said last week, the recent election was nothing like a mandate no matter how it’s spun. The division we are experiencing is real. We do not at all have a good sense of how to belong to each other, how to unite, how to heal. Literal millions of Americans live in fear that they will be ostracized simply for being themselves. We are tempted to let it go, to let each other go, to retreat away from each other.

Some of us may actually need to do that for a bit. You may need to create some distance from others in order to regain a sense of who you are, of what you are about. You may need some space in order to breathe and think. You will not be alone.

We are not alone even in how we are experiencing this moment. St. Paul writes to an early church that is made up of Jews and Gentiles, and he tells them that Jesus Christ is the peace between them. Which is a poetic way of saying that the embodied love of God for which they are made is stronger than any cultural differences they have. We would be mistaken if we thought our differences now are more radical and intractable than the Jews and Gentiles of the 1^st Century in the Roman Empire.

It's important to note that Paul doesn’t say believing all the same things about Jesus and God and the world around us will bring us peace. He says that the work Jesus has already done is the foundation of the peace between us, that the sacrificial love of Jesus has already ensured that all the barriers we keep putting up are temporary. Paul insists that the life and ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus mean that we belong to each other. That the way forward is together. Our job as Christians is not to make everyone believe the same thing – our job is to show up with our whole heart and love the person in front of us with abandon.

Following Jesus means walking the way of love. Every day. When you walk the way of love, you walk towards relationship and connection – even when it is difficult. And when you walk the way of love, you don’t get to choose who walks alongside you. We will not find salvation without one another.

We don’t need to isolate ourselves. We need to build and foster communities of belonging that are centered on unconditional love. We don’t need to dehumanize and hate others. We need to stubbornly insist on the dignity and belonging of all people as they are. And we don’t need to accept a culture that shames, isolates, and marginalizes someone simply for being themselves. We need to keep pushing for a country that is willing to be transformed by love.

Elsa’s retreat is glorious, but it is not meant to last. She has to find a way forward that includes her being herself while also being a part of others and allowing them to be a part of her. Likewise, her community needs to take a page from Anna’s book and allow themselves to be transformed in order to accept and love her for who she is. And I know I know it’s a Disney movie and here we are in the real world – but the truth is the truth even when it’s found in a children’s movie: The truth is whether we see it right now or not, we were made for each other, all of us. The truth is we cannot actually let each other go.