In my mid 30s, I was being drawn back into going to church, after many years of basic cluelessness in terms of what church had to offer. I remember shyly making my initial foray into an evening Eucharist at an Episcopal church in New York City, and the seminarian preaching that night spoke on this line from Matthew 16:25, words from Jesus that I had never heard, and were startling to say the least:

“Whoever would save his life would lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

At the time, I was struck both by the provocative potency of these words, and their lack of pastoral niceties. Despite, or maybe because of, the starkness, they felt compelling and possibly accurate.

I had no way of knowing (but thank goodness God knew), that a few weeks later the marital life that I knew and figured did not need saving would be lost. And that eventually, starting with that loss, I would indeed find my long and winding way into vibrant new life. This quote was just a little ahead of my curve, but believe me, I used it as a touchstone for years to come.

Since then, I have come across a poem by Mary Oliver that I think both embraces this central truth of Jesus’ and expands on it. It’s the last lines from ‘In Blackwater Woods”:

Every year
everything
I have ever learned

in my lifetime
leads back to this: the fires
and the black river of loss
whose other side

is salvation,
whose meaning
none of us will ever know.
To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

Her wisdom takes one of life’s great lessons - that of loss - and makes it even more poignant: What is also required is not just the letting go, but the passionate, temporary, complete embrace of all that will slip away. No half-hearted hesitation because of the pain that is coming. The ability to stand, fully present, in both light and dark. 

Whew. I’m not always so good at this. But prophets and poets help but words that speak to the most essential mysteries of our lives - words to live by.

Think of your own life, past or present. Do you have moments when it was clear that clinging would lead to a type of death, that new life came from loss? How do these memories enable you to live more fully today?