In one of the college classes I teach, the topic has been that of loss, grief, and death lately.  Most of the students in the class are under the age of 30 and if they are at all like me at that age, death was a topic to be avoided.  More of an annoyance to deal with than anything.

When I was younger, I saw death as a final event.  We live our lives, and then we die.  The real event, the true story, is found in the living.  Dying is simply a tragic inconvenience.

As I’ve aged and hopefully matured, I see things differently than I used to.  I’ve come to see that life itself- the living that we do- is a series of deaths and losses. (At an earlier point in my life, I would have stopped reading this post right now if I hadn’t written it myself!)

These deaths and losses might be the actual physical death of someone close to us, but more often than not they have to do with losing important friendships, or a community we love, what has been our home and place of security, a hope we had that didn’t work out, an expectation of ourselves or someone else, or something that gave us meaning and satisfaction.

These unavoidable deaths throughout our lives are not setbacks and detours, as though there is something wrong.  These deaths and losses along the way can be embraced as part of the path towards maturity, new life, and growth.

I’m an upward and onward kind of person, always looking ahead to the potential for growth and expansion, greater development of gifts, steadily moving into the “more” that lies ahead.  While all that is good, what I really didn’t see or understand earlier in life is just how much of the most transformative growth happens through setbacks, deaths, falls and failures that are more like descent.

Life itself is a steady climb forward, but as Richard Rohr says,

Like skaters, we move forward by actually moving from side to side… and now we are finding [this pattern]  mirrored rather clearly in the whole universe, and especially in physics and biology, which is one huge pattern of entropy;  constant loss and renewal, death and transformation, the changing of forms and forces.”

While no one really loves the difficulty that losses and death bring to our lives, it does at least help me to realize that there is a purpose to those times if we can embrace them.

How do we embrace these deaths and losses along the way?  Much could be said, but part of it is simply by acknowledging the feelings around the death and loss and allowing ourselves to feel it all the way down to the deep part of our soul.  In experiencing the loss fully, we then posture ourselves for new life to come forth.

It’s Spring now where I live.  As I see the little green buds beginning to pop through the cold, hard earth I am reminded of this pattern that is evident everywhere…  loss and death precede new life and growth.  Spring reminds me of this very truth.

Maybe you feel like you are in a winter.  A season of death and loss in some way.   Just as Spring reminds us that new life is on the way, may you know that your season will not last forever and there will be new life and new growth when it’s time.