Of course, we loose!

The spiritual journey includes our path through life and death as Paul speaks to the Romans in the text today from the Roman Catholic Lectionary. The psalmist addresses the natural human fear of death with the proclamation that the Lord is my light and my salvation. Richard Rohr, in Falling Upward, emphasizes the necessity of death to self in the completion of the spiritual journey toward transcendent intimacy with the Divine. The Gospel of Luke in Chapter 15, Rohr writes, contains 3 stories of loss. The sheep, a coin and a son are lost.  He comments that these parable are about loosing something, searching for it with some effort, finding it again and rejoicing about the return of the lost. This seems to be the necessary path of spiritual growth. We are always loosing, searching and regaining. The advice of the psalmist as we move through these phases is to believe that we shall see the goodness of the Lord and to be strong and let our hearts take courage especially when we are at the stage of anticipating loss or struggling to find the lost part of our relationship with God. Paul cautions against judgement of our neighbours who may be in the necessary struggle portion of their current search. We trust that they like we will regain the state where "every tongue shall give praise to God"