Passages

I am going to my sister’s for Thanksgiving and all guests are requested to say what they are thankful for as they light a candle. I have been pondering what to say for some time and even though the standard niceties; my family; my health; abundance; a loving community etc., are what I should say, all that seems to come to mind is a sense of loss; I do not think this is necessarily ungrateful.

I feel that this year has been a series of losses, not only for me personally, but for people that I have come to know and care about. Loss is very painful and creates for each individual a unique cluster of bewildering emotions as well as undesired awarenesses of the might-have-beens and man’s lack of control over even the simplest of circumstances.

Suffering makes me aware that I stand on the edge of a passage and at times the only guides through are tears and wrenching grief. Many times on this journey God remains remote and sometimes he is vivid. Somehow I am compelled to light my candle and read something that Henri Nouwen wrote:

One of the most radical demands for you and me is the discovery of our lives as a series of movements or passages. Your whole life is filled with losses, endless losses. And every time there are losses there are choices to be made. You choose to live your losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression, and resentment, or you choose to let these losses be passages to something new, something wider, and deeper. The question is not how to avoid loss and make it not happen, but how to choose it as a passage, as an exodus to greater life and freedom.



And then I am going to say, I am thankful for the Love of God and Passages.