The Poverty of Loss
When everything has been stripped away, when we have lost our mainstay, our rootedness in relationship, our resources, what is left? We are in the ancient coracle without oars, casting our welfare, our inability to control, into the support of a God who sustains us…even when, or most of all when, we must trust in the Great Unseen.
We pick up our lost selves and cast away into the unknown, to live like a nomad. One who can no longer rely on a bank account or a set of bills to be paid. We become widows and widowers to our former life, not just to our former spouse. Such is the premise of the film Nomadland which won several Academy Awards last week.
Which made me think of the widows in scripture, those who are left with their last few coins, their last grain, their only son. The biblical injunction to care for the widows and orphans means our companionship of them and their friendship with us is essential for spiritual health, for loving and extending mercy, doing what we can as we face our common human journey. Jesus says money is a problem and it can be that for sure but living without money is also a problem and poverty does not ennoble most people.
I think of the widow’s mite, how her ‘generosity’ is contrasted with those whose wealth extends carefully not recklessly. How she was praised for giving it all up, how those who give only from an overflow of abundance are the pitied. Maybe the pandemic has you noticing your pile of too much stuff; maybe you have learned that things are no substitute for human companionship. I confess that I am a bit jealous of all of you who get to return to being physically present in sacred spaces, that I must live without what I really want while others have it. That loss makes me feel poor in spirit some days. And I sometimes regret that my ‘news’ is the same old lockdown blues.
I rest in scripture, in poetry about loss and gain. I learn to live without; I learn to give thanks for this stripping down of the soul. I say my prayers, remembering others. The Master Potter has been at work reshaping my life. I make some art, answer emails, use my favorite pen to write in my moleskin. I try to enjoy the long wait for the trees to leaf in Ottawa. I delight more than usual in the colors of my tulips and the birdsong before dawn. All of this sends me back or deeper down to the Great Giver, the One who always has gifts we might need, not just gifts we want, who gives and doesn’t limit.
From the poet Ted Kooser