The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth

by Christopher L. Heuertz

Life best lived is lived as a series of losses, a series of deaths. Death is not meant to be a one-time event at the end of life but, rather, a daily experience by which we learn to continually embrace the unknown, step into mystery, and release the need to control. . . . The contemplative way is a practice in “death.” If you have ever witnessed the moment of death, you know that death is ultimately silent, still, and alone. The practices of contemplative spirituality prepare us for this. The contemplative way thrusts us into the beautiful struggle of embracing the unknown and losing the need to control.2 This is hard . . . it seems almost impossible. But Love, found in the silence, carries us through the agony of loss. Love returns us to the possibilities of life. As the prayer of Saint Francis reminds us, “It is in dying that we are born into eternal life.” Drew went on to say, “As we learn to practice death by way of contemplation, death at the end of life is no longer a fear, but is received as the next logical step. Death is no longer an unknown for us because we already know that life comes through the process of death. We will have lived that reality each day.”3 There’s no better way to live into our new life or original essence than with the help of contemplative practice. But we resist dying. It doesn’t come easy for us. Everything in us fights to hold on to what we think is life.