Dr. Nancy Copeland-Payton:Exploring the cycle of life's gifts, losses

SANDPOINT - Ours is a culture that avoids the topic of death. We run from it throughout our lives until, when the inevitable end chapter draws near, it takes on the kind of terrifying significance that only the dark reaches of the unknown can carry.

In like fashion, we seem culturally averse to discussing loss, whether it's the loss of money, relationships or youth. This state of denial pits us against reality, leaving us unprepared when stock markets tumble, friendships come to an end or birthdays accrue.

What if our perspective was to shift and we came to see death as the sacred, albeit mysterious, punctuation of life? What if we could view loss as the natural traveling partner of gain? How would our lives be different if we traded the duality of avoidance for the balance that comes with acceptance?

Dr. Nancy Copeland-Payton has openly addressed these same questions in her new book, "The Losses of Our Lives - The Sacred Gifts of Renewal in Everyday Loss."

By exploring and embracing the natural cycles of life that include small losses, Copeland-Payton writes, we ready ourselves to walk "the terrain of larger losses, the valley of the shadow of death."

Calling on her experience as a physician, hospital chaplain, pastor, spiritual director and retreat leader - a work history the Bonner County resident describes as her "spotted dog career" - Copeland-Payton manages to draw wisdom from virtually every major faith, revealing that the subject of dealing with loss - great and small - is a shared trait among them all.

None of that experience or study, however, could prepare her for the death of her infant son, Colin. His loss, she says, bore with it a painful gift - the compassion she now shares as she walks "the valley of the shadow" with others.

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Were you already aware that the world's religions had a common thread when it comes to the big questions surrounding loss, or did you discover that through the writing process?

Oh, I think it happened long, long ago. I was born and raised within Christianity and, as a lot of people did in the '60s, they left institutions, which could never measure up to their ideals because they were full of people. I was given the gift of being able to work overseas, where I spent time teaching medical school in Iran. At that time, I was introduced to the Sufis by the chair of the medicine department, particularly to some of the poetry.

I also spent some time in Asia, practiced yoga and read the Buddhist scriptures and found that there is wisdom there. Eventually, I came full circle back to my own tradition through the Celts and found that there's great wisdom there, also. All of this was reinforced in seminary, where it was required to take a comparative religion course.

All sorts of insights start happening when you, with serious intent, start reading sacred writings. The sacred is everywhere.

Is that part of the message you wish to convey in your book - that there is sacredness in everyday life?

Yes. The book is about awareness, about waking up. Finally seeing things for what they really are, not necessarily the surface turmoil that we tend to get caught up in, but the deeper realty that always lies underneath.

The culture in the West - which is the only one I can speak to because it's the only one I live in right now - doesn't tend to beckon us to those deeper places. In fact, it tends to reinforce being on the surface - doing as many things as possible in a single moment and yet, never really experiencing any of them.

This is a hard message for any culture, but particularly for an acquisitive culture, isn't it?

Um-hm. We're fast-paced and busy, as well as acquisitive. The book begins with a sense of yearning, of longing, that our lives seem to be woven on. But the busier we become, the less we're able to spend with that primal, foundational sense of yearning and desire. I'm not talking about "wants" - I'm talking about something very, very deep that our culture invites us to run from as fast as we can.

Oh, do one more thing, or go to a movie, or fill that spot in on your schedule, but don't ever be alone or in silence or reflective. Don't ever listen underneath what's happening, but try to listen, rather, to two or three conversations at once.

It's a counter-cultural invitation, but I think it's deep inside all of us. It's not just for special people. It's in everybody. It's that piece of the sacred calling to the sacred within us.

Does it sometimes seem like that sense of yearning and longing has been co-opted by a marketing machine that tells us to stay busy and buy more?

Oh, yeah. And it tells us that will satisfy. It's the spiritual equivalent to junk food. It provides temporary satiation, which doesn't really satisfy our hunger.

Unless people are very exceptional or they have been, unfortunately, catapulted into loss situations early on, somewhere around mid-life we begin what seems to be a natural rhythm of starting to pay attention to the longing. Maybe that's just the way it is. I suspect that's part of the - I hate to use the word 'crisis' - part of the mid-life 'awakening.'

Why then, do some guys turn into a cliche by going out and buying a sports car at that point in their lives?

Because it's easier to buy a sports car than it is to sit with some of the uncomfortable pieces of ourselves. That part of us that says, 'All of those things that I was acquiring during the first part of my life - all the degrees, the positions, the titles, the possessions - don't speak to my deeper hunger.'

That's what awakening is all about - finally having the wherewithal to sit with all of that and to see what it says to us.

You write about how being familiar with the smaller cycles of births and deaths, gifts and losses, along the way can help when it comes to understanding the much bigger walk through the valley of the shadow of death itself. Is that also an idea that is shared by different faiths?

Oh, yes. Let's look first at Christianity: 'Those who lose their life will find it.' Hebrew scripture talks about Moses walking 'beyond the wilderness,' which is where he found the burning bush; which is where the Hebrew people finally learn how to be a people of God. My understanding of having read a lot of Buddhist scripture is that it is very definitely about a profound letting go and learning to see and be in a very different way. And if you read poetry that is Islamic in origin - Rumi and Hafez - it's all about that. This is nothing new.

So, instead of fleeing from the losses we experience, we should immerse ourselves in them?

We should ask ourselves, 'What do they have to teach us - if we don't run from them?' Where might God be speaking through them to us?

I always try to emphasize that in no way do terrible losses happen so that we can learn a lesson. That's not what I'm saying. But when they do happen, where is God in that? What might we glean from them?

I'm talking about something less than the dying of a loved one, which is something that needs to be honored and mourned and grieved well. But then, we're still led to that same place of needing to let go of them as being physically present in our lives in the way they used to be so that we can receive the gift of them being woven into us in a more deep manner, which is always accessible to us and will never leave us.

Whether it's the death of a loved one or the loss of a friendship, is there a common thread in how best to deal with those losses?

The book is also about gifts. When we become aware of the steady stream of loss, we suddenly realize all the gifts we've been given that have passed.

In my mind, I see a visual image of a posture. And the posture is that of open hands. It's a posture of letting that stream of stunning gifts flow through our hands without trying to touch it, grab it, or feel entitled to it like it's ours to keep forever and ever. We're given practice every day. It happened with the sunrise this morning. Just as the peaking of the colors of sunrise happens - almost as soon as they appear - they start fading. Have you ever noticed that?

It's the same thing with the sunset or a moonrise. If you're not attentive, if you're not paying attention, you'll miss everything. We are given these amazing gifts and, literally, almost as soon as some of them come into our lives, we see them fading and passing. We need to have our hands open to receive them. If we try to clutch them, we'll be unsuccessful. We'll be miserable.

We all change and therefore our relationships change. Our longest, most stable relationships are only long-term because we let them change. They're not rock-solid - they're constantly shifting and changing and growing and embracing new ways. And because we're able to let that happen, we're able to maintain the relationship.

There's been so much written about finding peace by staying 'in the moment.' It sounds like achieving that involves a continuous act of letting go. Or is it 'letting be?'

Um-hm. And letting it all just flow; not trying to dam up the river. When we're in that place, we learn how to receive the gifts more fully.

I use the image of Gollum (a tragic main character in the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy) clutching that ring. It destroyed him and it wasn't his to keep.

These cycles of birth and death, gifts and loss, happen annually in nature with the changing of the seasons. Taoists see that as the most ancient scripture of all. Can modern society still learn from those cycles - that scripture?

Perhaps the critical lesson is that we are a part of creation, we're not separate from it. Certainly, we are dependent upon it for our life - the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and the beauty we see. We are a part - just a part - of that. We're woven into that tapestry of creation and it's all interdependent. You pull one thread and the whole picture changes.

It's funny, but even the concept of being in the moment is elusive and can seem like it's a serial thing or part of a journey: I'm here now; here I am again now; now I'm here.

Yes, we think of it as being linear. And it's progressive - as if somehow you can progress and be here now. (Laughs)

You share a walking meditation in your book that uses the fundamental affirmation, 'I have arrived.' Is being in the moment that simple?

I have a saying that I used to keep on my desk that says, 'This is it - there's no rehearsal.' This is it. Everything that there is can be found in this moment. I find it interesting that, at least in Hebrew scripture, the voice of God says, 'I am who I am.' It's not past tense, it's not future. It's present tense. In this moment is the only place we can encounter God, or the sacred.

It's not only all we're given, it's everything. We're given everything in this moment.

The walking meditation that I use in the book is Thich Nhat Hanh's beautiful rendering of it. He's a Buddhist monk who lives in France. But it's also very much a part of Christian tradition. The cloisters around the monastery were not only meant to be a place where you can be in creation, but a place to walk your prayers, walk your mediation, walk your pondering and your listening.

Parenting is a fascinating study in all of this. When it's done well, you have to 'lose' your children and let them go, don't you?

Yes Isn't that our goal? To have our children fly away into their own lives? Kind of. (Laughs) We say that, even as we try to clutch the 2-year-old and say, 'Oh, don't grow up!'

It's made tangible, because our children physically change and we see the fact that our relationship needs to change. It's not so easy with a marriage or a friendship - or even a community - because we're not physically changing to the dramatic degree that our kids do.

You know that snip of the umbilical cord? That's the beginning. We continue that process until, hopefully, they are able to walk out the front door for the last time as a child of this house who lives there. They will always be our child, but there's a significant difference once they walk out that door into their adult life.

You've written about Colin and a powerful ache comes from that chapter. Were you moved, in part, to write this book because of the loss of your own child?

It was one of those losses that slams us into the reality of 'we have no control.' We live in this illusion, with the small things we think we can control, that there's this bubble around us that lets us control everything and that, somehow, the people we love will be able to - grow up.

It's not given, it's not guaranteed and it's not anywhere said that it is. Loving is a huge risk and vulnerability. And when somebody we love dies, we realize the immensity of that risk. So Colin's death was my own personal experience of that ache that never goes away. You're never finished grieving the death of a child. It becomes a part of who you are and it changes you forever. There's no getting to the end of it.

Decades later, a priest sat with me and said, 'Colin's painful, costly gift to you is compassion for other people who are now in the same place.' He's right. It's true. And it's a gift we'd never want.

So, from a personal standpoint, it's one of the things that let me write this book. But it wasn't just the one personal experience of a loss that sweeps over you like a tsunami. I think the gestation of it happened from accompanying other people as a physician, a pastor and now as a spiritual director and a retreat leader. They give me the privilege of letting me walk with them through those places. I've walked that, also, myself. We all, at some point, walk through that place.

Most of us try desperately to avoid those painful, difficult stretches of road. Why have you made it a life's work to walk them over and over again with others?

I suspect there's several pieces to that. I believe that God does have a claim on us that I'm convinced is based on love and that who we are created to be and the gifts we are given is given to us at birth. I believe our desires and our deepest yearnings are really a response to God's yearnings for us.

This isn't something that everybody is beckoned into doing. But once we begin living out of our authentic selves, then you start gradually growing into who you were created to be. Perhaps this is who I've been created to be. I find that it is such a privileged place - a sacred place - to be with people in these places where there are no masks. It's holy ground. God's there.

Dealing with the shadow side of life's gifts could be interpreted as a crucible, but could it also be thought of as a kind of baptism?

I'm glad you brought that into this conversation. Baptism can be enlarged to include lots of images that are outside of any religious tradition. From a Christian tradition, it is about a profound letting go of what was; letting all the stuff we don't need be washed away. It invites us to shed all of that and be open to receive life. Life anew, in fullness and awareness.

Your book weaves ritual into each of the chapters. Was this a conscious effort to remind people that ritual can be a part of everyday life? Of modern life, in particular?

As human creatures, we need that regrounding throughout the day, because it's so easy to get pulled into other places. There's a reason that, in monastic tradition, prayer happens seven times-a-day. Islamic tradition prays five times-a-day. It's just a way to remind us who we are - and whose we are - and to invite us to wake up.

When I say prayer, I'm not necessarily talking about words we speak to God. You know, 'Listen Lord, because I'm talking.' It's more like, 'Speak God, because I'm listening.' It's that turning that lets us see the beauty around us or appreciate the gift of a conversation. These are things that can be done all the time.

What is the primary message you want to pass along to those who read your book?

Perhaps it's the hard-won message that by allowing the losses to sink into us - to be aware of them and experience them - from the small losses all the way up to the death of someone we love dearly, or even our own aging and death - to let them speak to us and change us and mold us. Because, by walking through that journey, it quickens our awareness of the incredible gift of life.

And it's only by walking through that and being open that we are led into this profound awareness and a sense of gratitude. It's a paradox that you would never predict could happen. It's a deep sense that you can't appreciate life in its fullness until you realize that it's not ours to hang onto or to keep. It will pass. If I don't drink in the sight and the smell of that flower in this moment, it will be gone. So - wake up. Wake up.

"The Losses of Our Lives - The Sacred Gifts of Renewal in Everyday Loss" is available at regional bookstores, as well as online booksellers. For information, visit: www.skylightpaths.com

Date of birth: June 8, 1950

Family: Husband, Gary Payton; three sons: Ian (wife Charity, son Alec), Adam, Graham

Education: MD - Johns Hopkins Medical School; Masters of Divinity - United Theological Seminary

Number of hours on average you work in a week: Around 30

Number of hours on average you sleep in a night: 9

Sports: Nordic skiing, snowshoeing, kayaking, hiking

Favorite travel destination: The unknown (any place I've not been before)

Favorite movie: "Gandhi"

Favorite book: "Hope for the Flowers" by Trina Paulus

Favorite type of music: Silence

Favorite spectator sport: Ice skating and gymnastics

Quality you admire most in person: Authenticity

Best advice you ever received: Listen

Any one thing you would say is your greatest accomplishment: Raising our three sons

Favorite quote: "Listen with the ear of your heart"

Figure you would most like to meet: Gabriel (the angel)