Passages to Something New
“See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” – Is 43:19
One of life’s greatest challenges is the discovery of our lives as a series of movements or passages. It seems as though we are always passing from one phase to the next, gaining and losing someone, some place, something.
We live all these passages in an environment where we are constantly tempted to be destroyed by resentment, by anger, and by a feeling of being put down. The losses remind us constantly that all isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t always happen for us the way we expected; that perhaps we had hoped events would not have been so painful, but they were; or that we expected something from certain relationships that never materialized. We find ourselves disillusioned with irrevocable personal losses: our health, our lover, our job, our hope, our dream. Our whole life is filled with losses, endless losses.
And every time there are losses there are choices to be made. I can choose to live my losses as passages to anger, blame, hatred, depression, and resentment, or I can choose to let these losses be passages to something new (Is 43:19), 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.
How do I respond to the challenging passages of my life? With open hands? Clenched fists? In what ways can I invite God into the process?
Adapted from Henri Nouwen