I remember hearing a parable a few years ago about a small simple flower that grew and blossomed behind the roar of great waterfall. The message of the parable was for us to be at peace in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the world, just as that little flower was at peace behind the roar of the waterfall. It’s a beautiful image, especially during this season of great economic uncertainty. I, like many people, am facing the loss of a job in a few months in the midst of a larger climate of great economic instability. There is a temptation to see a lot of anxiety in the roar of this waterfall. Yet, there is also the potential for possibility and new beginnings.

In The Story of Ruth: Twelve Moments in Every Woman’s Life, Joan Chittister writes, “We learn that loss is simply the invitation to begin another life, to take on the rest of life, to develop the fullness of the godlife within us. In fact, loss propels us into another life whether we want to begin again or not . . . . ironically enough, when all is said and done, we discover that what loss really leaves us with is beginnings.” Later in the book, Chittister’s comments offer further encouragement: “Transformation is not happenstance; it is a revolution of the soul. Doing something over and over, being somewhere again and again, saying yes and yes and yes to what we said yes to before, we find, is suddenly no answer to the questions of today for us. We stop being whoever it was who began this journey. We are not now who we were. We don’t want any longer to be who everyone thinks we’re supposed to be. Our souls stretch to the bursting point and home becomes foreign soil. Somehow, without ever knowing that it happened, we awake to find ourselves transformed.” All of this because, “change dusts off our possibilities and explodes us into new beginnings.”

For those involved in the muck of job loss and unemployment, Chittister offers a way to make sense of some of our personal and national losses and struggles. This is a time of invitation: can we find the courage and faith to let go of the old ways that we have been hanging onto so that we can embrace the fantastic new growth and possibility that God is so lovingly, patiently and insistently holds out to us? Is this the flower of God’s love and compassion whispering through the waterfall confusion of societal expectations, and the ego’s favorite clamor of anxiety, judgement and condemnation? “We are all a medley of possible beginnings,” Chittister explains, “all of them straining toward fulfillment.” And so, let us be hopeful and at peace–blossoming flowers behind the roar of a great waterfall–in this continuing season of loss and new beginnings.