Grieving a Loss

I am grieving a loss! Not the loss of a loved one, or a beloved pet, but the loss of the contents saved on my computer: over 6000 photos, 7 years of sermons, 20 years work in my genealogy tree, and all my documents. And I can assure you, it is real loss and is accompanied by real grief.

I was assured at the Apple Store after they had wiped and reinstalled the operating system on my computer that I could go ahead and load the saved backup from my Time Machine, ‘And no, Ma’am you can’t mess it up!!!’ They definitely underestimated me, because while the shells of the programmes reloaded, the contents did not. Not only did they not reload, the Time Machine is now blank prior to April 18, 2018! And so the process begins of gathering from hither and yon whatever I can find and of acknowledging my real grief for those things that are gone forever.

But I am beginning to realize that my computer disaster is a gigantic metaphor for my spiritual journey, a journey I am already on. Ten years ago I was ready to leave the Christian church for good, feeling like a fraud. Many of the things I was hearing and professing to believe I could no longer really accepted. Then I stepped away from the world of correct answers and beliefs. I entered a new world where questions are encourage and the bible stories are seen as just that, stories or myths that express a greater truth.

“Myth is stories about the way things never were, but always are.” (Marcus J. Borg)

But how is a computer melt down a metaphor for my spiritual journey, you might ask. In both cases, the contents were lost, both saved materials and beliefs. In both cases, it was impossible to go back to what was before. In both cases some things were able to be restored but only some and those sparingly. A lot of clutter was gone leaving room for the new to fill.

There is real loss in that space: loss of the known, loss of the past, loss of an innocence. And yes, in both cases the loss of something irreplaceable. It is a vacuum that is waiting to be filled with the new.What that will be is yet to be determined. But I now have the opportunity to construct something new, to put together a new story with a new ending.

“The notion that there was one “right” way of seeing things disappeared. This was enormously liberating, even if a bit alarming. But my curiosity was greater than my fear.” (Marcus J. Borg, Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most)

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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