Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised, 상실이 아닌 상실에 대한 나의 반응이 내 삶을 결정짓는다

 

Gerald L. Sittser, A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1995, 2004  

Loss is as much a part of normal life as birth, for as surely as we are born into this world, we suffer loss before we leave it. It is not, therefore, the experience of loss that becomes the defining moment of our lives, for that is as inevitable as death, which is the last loss awaiting us all. It is how we respond to loss that matters. That response will largely determine the quality, the direction, and the impact of our lives. (17)

Response involves the choices we make, the grace we receive, and ultimately the transformation we experience in the loss. (18)

Loss is like a terminal illness. There is nothing we can do to spare ourselves from such sickness, except perhaps put it off for a while. But there is another sickness that we can heal – the sickness of our souls. In matters of the soul, I do not want to treat symptoms but to heal the illness. If we face loss squarely and respond to it wisely, we will actually become healthier people, even as we draw closer to physical death. We will find our souls healed, as they can only be healed through suffering. (18)

I decided to write a book about the universal experience of loss rather than my own particular experience alone. I wanted to use restraint about my own story for the sake of my privacy… My experience has only confirmed in my mind how hard it is to face loss and how long it takes to grow from it. But it has also reminded me how meaningful and wonderful life can be, even and especially in suffering. (18-19)

1. The End and the Beginning: I remember those first moments after the accident as if everything was happening in slow motion. They are frozen into my memory with a terrible vividness… In the hours that followed the accident, the initial shock gave way to an unspeakable agony… I could not rid my eyes of the vision of violence, of shattering lass and shattered bodies. All I wanted was to be dead…. Life was chaotic. My children too experienced intense grief and fear… Responsibilities at home and work accumulated like trash on a vacant lot, threatening to push me toward collapse. …feeling so exhausted and anguished that I wondered whether I could survive another day, whether I wanted to survive another day…. I realized that I would have to suffer and adjust; I could not avoid it or escape it. There was no way out but ahead, into the abyss. (26-29)  

2. Whose Loss Is Worse? : Living means changing, and change requires that we lose one thing we gain something else. Thus we lose our youth but gain adulthood. We lose... We lose a daughter but gain a son-in-law…  The scenery we enjoy today gradually fades into the background, finally receding from sight. But what looms ahead comes nearer and gets clearer, until it becomes the scenery of the present moment that fills our vision. (31) We tend to quantify and compare suffering and loss… but I question whether experiences of such severe loss can be quantified and compared. Loss is loss, whatever the circumstances. All losses are bad, only bad in different ways… Each loss stands on its own and inflicts a unique kind of pain. (33) As I look back now, I celebrate the relationships for what they were. I cherish the memories of the four years I had with Diana Jane, the twenty years of marriage I enjoyed with Lynda, and the forty-one years I knew my mother. My grief was and is pure and sweet. I lost precious relationships that I had and still long for with all my heart. (34) I miss her as she was, not as I wished to be. I lost a friend, a lover, and a partner… Her absence touches almost every area of my life. I am haunted by the memories… (36) I hear stories about people’s pain. I have probably always heard these stories, but until I experienced loss myself, I did not listen intently to them or let those stories penetrate the protective shell around my heart. I am more sensitive to the pain now, not as oblivious and selfish as I used to be. (37)

3. Darkness Closes In : Sudden and tragic loss leads to terrible darkness… The accident kept replaying itself in my mind like a horror movie repeating its most gruesome scene. (40-41) I discovered in that moment that I had the power to choose the direction my life would head, even if the only choice open tome, at least initially, was either to run from the loss or to face it as best I could… Giving myself to grief proved to be hard as well as necessary… I wanted to pray but had no idea what to say, as if struck dumb by my own pain. Groans became the only language I could use, if even that, but I believed it was language enough for God to understand. (43)

The decision to face the darkness, even if it led to overwhelming pain, showed me that the experience of loss itself does not have to be the defining moment of our lives. Instead, the defining moment can be our response to the loss. It is not what happens to us that matters as much as what happens in us. Darkness, it is true, had invaded my soul. But then again, so did light. Both contributed to my personal transformation. (45)

My first awareness of change within me came as I began to reflect on how I performed the mundane responsibilities from which I felt so alienated. Though I was not completely alive to them, I was able at least to think about them, if only from a distance. I was struck by how wonderful ordinary life is. Simply being alive became holy to me. As I saw myself typing exams, chatting with a student on the way to class, or tucking one of my children into bed, I sensed I was beholding something sacred… I was not yet fully alive to these ordinary moments, but I began to glimpse how profound they were. (45)

 Frankl concluded that these prisoners transcended their circumstances because they found meaning in their suffering. “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete. (48)

We must mourn, but we must also go on living…. After three years, I continue to live in that tension. But there is a significant difference now. The sorrow I feel has not disappeared, but it has been integrated into my life as a painful part of a healthy whole. (50-51)

My own catastrophic loss thus taught me the incredible power of choice – to enter the darkness and to feel sorrow, as I did after the accident, even as I continued to work and to care for people, especially my children. I wanted to gain as much as I could from the loss without neglecting ordinary responsibilities. I wanted integrate my pain into my life in order to ease some of its sting. I wanted to learn wisdom and to grow in character. I had had enough of destruction, and I did not want to respond to the tragedy in a way that would exacerbate the evil I had already experienced. I knew that running from the darkness would only lead to greater darkness later on… In choosing to face the night, I took my first steps toward the sunrise. (52)