Loss: The universal experience

Cutting across every demographic group, every socioeconomic status, every race, color, creed and national origin, every culture in every time, is loss.

I've come to believe one of the main keys to a contented life is how we deal with loss.

Although I won't waste more than a sentence on one kind of loss -- a political defeat -- surely this awaits someone on November 3 and coping strategies will be necessary for those grieving defeat.

Age and unstoppable loss are on my mind for this column since this writer recently qualified to draw Social Security, the 1935 tax-funded entitlement intended as a social safety net for older Americans.

Controversial at the time, considered a budget-breaker by many, the program is now referred to as the "third rail" of American politics: touch it and you die.

Aging was on the mind of Jesus when the following words were attributed to him:

"Truly I say to you -- when you were young, you made yourself ready and went wherever you had a desire to go; but when you are old, you will put out your hands and another will make you ready, and you will be taken where you have no desire to go." (John 21:18/ESV)

Having worked in a retirement community for awhile, the truth of the Master's words is not lost on me.

My body does not respond in my sixties the way it did when my wife and I met at age 18. Not even close. I suspect yours, dear reader, may be the same.

I require daily medications to keep on an even keel. Perhaps you can relate.

When on my daily walk, I'm incredibly careful where I put my feet down.

In my youth and well into adulthood, this sort of caution rarely came to mind.

Age is a perfect storm in several ways: a loss of certain ability, a loss of a particular ability to self-regulate physically, a loss of physical confidence.

I have more years behind me than are ahead, yet for the people I teach three days a week at Southeast Missouri State University, the reverse is true.

All my pupils in New Testament Literature are traditional students, meaning they fall between the ages of 18 and 22.

I thought it would be instructive to ask those young people, presumably all in their physical prime, although this cannot be absolutely assumed, to comment on loss.

Several this semester have been directly impacted by the loss of health and unrestricted movement due to COVID-19.

Either they have had the virus or have been in contact with those who have, requiring them to quarantine.

Input on a particular loss

I asked my 17 students which of their five physical senses -- sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell - would be the toughest to lose.

Their answers were a bit surprising.

If my question amounted to a straw poll, then, touch and sight won by a mile.

Here is a sampling of responses:

"Physical contact is important (and) it would be crushing for me not to be able to touch my girlfriend."

"Touch is the one (sense) you fall back on the most. Without touch, you can't tell where you are."

"Being blind is one thing I cannot imagine."

"I take in so much more by seeing something."

"(Life) would be much more difficult being blind."

"Without (eyesight), I'd be on edge all of the time."

Compensations

Jesus' words, assigned to him in the Fourth Gospel, instruct us of the inevitability of loss.

Don't mourn the deprivation but seek compensations.

One of my renumerations, if you will, is I don't worry about so many of things that used to occupy my mind.

Career ambition has largely departed, and it is not missed.

Conversation is much more highly valued.

What about you, dear reader?

What has the experience of loss taught you as together we navigate the streams of temporal existence?

Comfort

There is a text that seems to never fail to make the hair stand up on my arm; it is thrilling.

I find the assurance found in a letter of anonymous origin, directed at the church at large, a missive more meaningful now than in my younger days.

To wit: "Recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated. For you had compassion for those who were in prison, and you cheerfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you yourselves possessed something better and more lasting. Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised." (Hebrews 10:32-36/NRSV)