Over the past two weeks I’ve explored the idea of giving, even generosity beyond the measure of oneself. In reality, the act of giving is always an act of loss. Whenever we say, “Yes,” to one thing, a multitude of things are receiving from us an automatic, “no.” Their possibility has been sacrificed. On account of our inherently limited nature, and contrary to much of what seems to be a more common aspiration, we can’t do everything, all the time, everywhere. It is literally impossible. We can however to some things, some of the time, in a few places, and hopefully do those things well. While some choices might hurt more than others, if we look at the nature of choice in light our limitations, and our formation for that matter, a built-in part of the process is loss, and that for a particular sake.
This, of course, is not to speak of the numerous occasions for which we experience a loss that we would never have wanted or chosen – a death, a separation, an ending, of a relationship, a loved one, or dream. “What do we have to lose?” is the question that comes before thinking about what we are to do about all that we have lost. My hope in starting here is that we can get ahead of the curve. That in naming the possibilities of loss, the realities of loss, and imagining the other side of loss, especially in light of the idea of new life, we may be better formed to go through the inevitable.
Things
I must have been six or seven years old when I experienced my first loss. I remember being on the road back home, following a wonderful family vacation at the beach, when I realized I was missing a toy. I had come to the beach with a collection of G.I. Joe figures. My dad and I would spend a whole afternoon on the beach building opposing sandcastles upon which the figures would stand. We then would throw the beach version of snowballs at each other’s castle attempting to knock over every figure. One figure didn’t make it back to the car. It wasn’t just any figure. It was an original Snake Eyes. He was unique amongst G.I. Joe action figures, my personal favorite, and he was gone. I wasn’t sure where he might have been left and there was no going back for him. I would soon learn that he was also discontinued. There was no replacing him.
The lost toy, the broken heirloom, the stolen car…There is a kind of connection that comes with the interaction, even care, we have with our things. When we lose them, in whatever fashion, that connection is severed. We can’t be reminded of the memories a particular thing might hold in the same way anymore. We can’t experience time, as we did while interacting with the thing, in the same way anymore. Our space, once filled with that thing, is now lacking. Our actions, as we might have often reached for the thing, are missing their counterpart.
It is a loss, but there are of course losses that are much more severe.
People
It’s an early morning on a Sunday in August 2003 when I am told that my friend and mentor Gregory Hines has died. I immediately closed my eyes and started to cry as memories of our time together flashed before my mind. Gregory was the kind of guy with whom you never wanted the time to end. I never wanted our time together to end. He was also the kind of guy that you couldn’t imagine the world without. I couldn’t. The thought had never even crossed my mind. He was supposed to be there for all the things of life.
There often aren’t good words for the depth of loss, the complexity of feelings, or the myriad of questions that can arise when we lose a person. These common experiences in loss seem to reflect the depth of connection, complexity of relationship, and myriad of things that seem unfinished or undesired or undone in the wake of such separation.
In past notes I’ve talked, maybe only lightly, about the way in which we are more connected with each other than we might know. Dallas Willard, in talking about the parts of the person considers social relationships to be an inner part of the person, not simply a function of external connections. This seems to line up with what it feels like when we lose a person. It’s as if a part of us is lost, missing, gone…but that’s not all.
Dreams
In 2019 I burnt out. I was just one year into what I thought would be my dream job. I had moved across the country, and to a new country to pursue this dream, but it was not to be. Dreams have a way of inspiring and cultivating energy and momentum. Even new relationships can be forged around dreams. The loss of them leaves us with a vacuum. The inspiration can turn into desolation. The energy and momentum often simply leave us as we may find ourselves empty. The relationships end or are reimagined.
The loss of a dream is akin to the loss of a future. When we lose people, dreams go, too. The particular kind of life that we had envisioned and the people we imagined sharing it with are both lost.
To Lose Our Own Lives
A friend and exquisite storyteller, Peter Aguero, once told me, the center of the story is the moment a pivotal choice is made. The events surrounding that choice provide a frame for the turning point. But the drama isn’t only in the choice that is made, it’s in noticing all the other choices that could have been made and weren’t. Our lives as conscious beings are made up of the cumulative interaction of our choices and consequential actions with the world around us.
For every choice we make we set in motion a possible future. For every choice there are also a near infinite number of possible futures that we have said “no” to. Whether we have done this consciously or not is a different matter that is important to note. Regardless these possible futures are lost to hindsight, future imagining, and playing a game of “What if?”
For much of my life, I had spent a significant amount of time cultivating a vision of the kind of life I wanted. Many things changed, but my approach and key areas of attention in my journey stayed much the same – these were sincere pursuits of the living God as described by the witnesses of Jesus, my dancing, and the navigation of family and social relationships. All of that changed in 2019.
When I share with others that I hit burnout, there is sympathy. When I say that I went to counseling, the expression on people’s faces change. “Oh, you mean burnout.” As if they had thought that I was just really tired or something. No, this was a seizing of the system of thought and action that I had used for my entire life. It all broke at the same time. I doubted my ability to sincerely pursue the God I said I loved. I could not match the necessary output that my work demanded. I could not seem to navigate the relationships in my life with any sense of “doing it well.” Notably I could not see anything changing. Something was deeply wrong.
It has been a couple years since that formative moment, and there are a few things that have changed, thankfully. I am in a place now that I can truly say, “I never would have imagined my current life.” And I think that is the point. The life that I had worked towards until the burnout was based on habituated thoughts and actions that weren’t ultimately based in my current reality. In order for things to change I had to be willing to give up those very thoughts and actions. It goes deeper still, I had to be willing to inquire of, and put to rest, the wants and desires that continued to fuel the habituated thoughts and actions. I had to be willing to redirect my energy. Here is the thing: Our habituated thoughts and actions, the underlying wants and desires, the energy and direction coordinated by our will, are the very things that make our lives. They filter through our senses and personality, perception and faculties of interpretation, to make up how we show up in the world.
Followers of Jesus may be familiar with the idea of losing one’s life in the non-physical sense. Writings from followers of old use the language of death quite frequently to talk about what it takes to follow. This is to say nothing about the death of the cross that Jesus, himself, experienced, and that provides a dramatic and violent visible parable for all of this talk of death. Jesus, less violently, is documented as saying, "He that finds (or found) his life shall lose it: and he that loses (or lost) his life for my sake shall find it.” That is, as has been exposited by many a preacher over the years, the person who has staked their claim on their own life (their self) will indeed find that their life is not there, while the person who has given up such claim to their life for the sake of following Jesus will find their truer, fuller, more complete life.
We have the claim on our own life to lose.
A New Life
Some might ask “Why?” Why even talk about loss. It’s a horrible topic. It’s painful and filled with emotions that most of us would rather avoid than suffer through confronting. I would like to offer a vision of what might be on the other side of loss. I, in no way mean to undermine the real pain that comes with loss of any kind. Nor the time necessary to process all the emotions. I only mean to offer a proposition. It is rooted in my trust that the documented life of Jesus is true, and a model – that is an actual life – that is possible for me and for anyone. You may want to try it on as a metaphor or analogy before thinking of it as a reality. Either way the vision is the same.
Many summaries of Jesus’s life center the cross, and rightly so. The cross can remind us that Jesus willingly laid down his life in the most violent and humiliating method of the time. It can remind us of the many purposes of Jesus doing so – the remission of sins, or how he decided to ultimately call people to himself, for example. It is a vision of immense purposeful suffering. The cross is powerful. However, there was something that Jesus had in front of him when he went to and through the cross: Joy.
Many may speculate about what this joy may have been specifically – the joy of the Father? Of a life well lived? Of completing his purpose? Of those he knew would follow him through the ages? Regardless of the specifics, I think it is safe to say that Jesus knew about the life that he would have after the cross.
I’ve been thinking about the kind of new life I would need to have a vision of that would allow me to go through the crosses – deaths, losses, and separations – of my own life. Could there be such a vision that would make my experience of such loss different? If I had to lose everything, could this vision (even a reality) be able to carry me through it all? I hope so…cause there is a lot to lose.