Nancy Copeland-Payton is a spiritual director and ordained clergywoman in the Presbyterian Church (USA). A pastor, hospital chaplain, and physician who practiced medicine for 20 years, she now leads retreats at church centers and monasteries and with church groups to help people explore their experience of loss. This well-written book is "an invitation to awaken to life's enduring rhythm of sacred gift, of loss, and of renewing gift once again."
Copeland-Payton begins with the startling experience of birth where we lose the gift of the womb's nurturing shelter and are hurled into an alien world. Of course, there is also the gift of caring people who gently usher us through this transition which ends in our mother's warm embrace. Although it is a hard lesson to learn, Copeland-Payton assures us that it will be repeated again and again during our life: "New birth and growth always entails loss, often painful loss."
Leaving home is a pivotal passage that involves letting go of our past and our parents. It is a time of transition, which we welcome as as exciting part of our journey into selfhood. But, at the same time, we mourn the loss of familiar habits and parental communion. As Copeland-Payton writes:
"To leave home is to traverse a terrain of terrible, stark beauty. It is a timeless journey through sacred gift and loss and new birth. Difficult and wondrous blessings are given the traveler. These are gifts from the losses. Our child-parent relationship had to end for me to understand that I carry inside this love that never ends. I had to leave home to know this love that never leaves me when I walk out the front door."
In various chapters, the author continues her assessment of the big and small losses in our lives with material on hidden loss, things and places, friendship, interrupted relationships, deaths (a child, parents, a spouse), middle-age, and aging (physical health, abilities, and self-image). From our birth to our death, we are repeatedly challenged to let go and not to clutch possessively.
Copeland-Payton includes in each chapter exercises to explore the losses further and instructions for spiritual practices, including breath prayer, walking meditation, examen, sand mandela, labyrinth, accompaniment, lectio divina, and guided meditation.
