LOSS

 

Recently I have experienced loss at a magnitude which feels beyond what I can absorb through my normal process of grief, prayer, contemplation, and honoring the loss through commitment to life and resilience.  As I write this, I search for ways to overpower it emotionally, but I am recognizing that surrendering to God’s will is my only path.  I know so many of you have encountered the effects of loss, and I hope my reflection will lead you to the same surrender.  Because one thing I have learned is that surrender is not a concession to defeat.  It is a mark of faith.

 

Loss, as is its nature, comes in a range of forms.  It comes when we are not expecting it… not ready… and seeks to leave our soul empty and defeated.  In my case, I have lost the joy of connection and relationship as I helplessly watch a loved one suffering decline and its destruction of mind, body and soul.  And I have lost my beloved dog and companion of 18 years.

 

Your loss may be of a similar nature.  And like me, after the sorrow of emptiness and the helplessness of apparent defeat, you may have sought remedy in engaging your mind by going through a process of assessment, and your body by deciding to take action. 

 

But what do you do when you watch someone losing cognitive connection with you and with the rest of the world?  What action can mitigate the pathology of that process?  And what is your motive?  To bring back the person you once knew?  If that person is safe and happy, for whom is that remedy intended?

 

And what do you do when you lose a beloved companion to death?  No action can change that irreversible event, but what can you do to mitigate the sadness?  And again, what is your motive?  To bring back that experience of loving and being loved? If that beloved companion has passed to a place of no pain, for whom is that remedy intended?

 

My faith has often provided more questions about life than answers, but in these days, after realizing it is the endpoint to which I keep arriving, I have awakened to the fact that it should be my starting point.  I realize that I have engaged my mind and my body in trying to process loss, but I have not engaged my soul.

 

Every day, when loss comes my way (and it does, often and in obvious forms such as death or critical illness, or even news of families and friends suffering social and emotional challenges), I try and guide myself right into prayer.  I remind myself of a great bit of spiritual advice I received when a priest told me that no challenging encounter should be approached without envisioning the triangle of the other person, myself, and God.  “See the Triangle” he said.  That visual, for me, is both comforting and encouraging.  It opens a path of dialogue for me through prayer and trust in the God who is always there, always waiting, always loving.

 

And so I invite you into whatever form of contemplative prayer you practice.  When loss, in any of its many forms, knocks on your door with the potential to rock your world and shake your confidence, trust and believe that prayer can bring you the same consolation it has brought me.  Prayer can open your heart to the grace that only God can impart.  The fear of what we are losing can be replaced, even if it takes time, by gratitude for what we still have.  For we live in a world filled with beauty and grace, and we certainly do not have to reach far beyond our immediate circumstance to touch the wonders of our surroundings.  In nature, in fellowship, and even in the material things manifesting our own collective creativity, we can recognize pleasure and goodness.  And we can thank God.

 

A friend once summed this up by saying “My most fervent daily prayer is “Thy Will Be Done.”

 

Amen.