Losing and finding

The experience of loss has something in common. There is anger, confusion (‘I don’t know what to do’); there’s pain (‘this is something precious, important, valuable’) – ache and pain, loss, absence, whether that is an object, or a person or a sense of direction in life in the sense of losing your way, as you say. Loss is a very powerful human experience. And nobody gets very far in life without coming into it. We all experience loss. Maybe it is loss of our hopes, or loss of our health, or loss of our youth, or loss of our partner, or loss of our relationships or whatever it is, loss of money, or status – all sorts of things we can lose. And then the finding. In Jesus’ parables, loss is followed by going out, looking for it, and what characterises the experience of finding is joy. I think this is important for the AA spirituality because, in the addiction there is a very deep experience of loss — self-worth, self-respect, freedom, wholeness, friendships, marriages, money, my soul and consciousness.

Grace at Work by Laurence Freeman OSB