The Practice of Getting Lost

Sometimes we need to get a little lost.  It does our senses some good when we're not sure where we are.  Barbara Brown Taylor said in her book An Altar in the World, "You have to start somewhere.  If you do not start choosing to get lost in some fairly low-risk ways, then how will you ever manage when one of life's big winds knocks you clean off your course?  I am not speaking literally here, although literal lostness is a good place to begin since the skills are the same: managing your panic, marshalling your resources, taking a good look around to see where you are and what this unexpected development might have to offer you."

Some people don't manage their panic or marshal their resources very well, however.  You may have heard about the couple and their children who got lost in a corn maze in Danvers, Massachusetts.  After spending who-knows-how-long in the maze and not making it out, the decide to call 911.  That would have been my natural thought.  Yes, let's call 911 to get us out of a corn maze.  Hmm. Either way, the police come, only for the couple to discover that they were about 25 feet away from the exit.  To each his own.

But then I spent some time in our own local corn maze and discovered that I was quite annoyed at getting lost.  And quite annoyed at going around in circles, wondering how the heck to get over there, wherever there is, when I am so sick of seeing and being here, wherever here is.  I didn't feel the need to call 911, but I will admit that I did text the above sign at one point because clearly my sense of direction was not getting me anywhere.  The text wasn't much help.  It basically said look at the sun and go left.  Awesome.  That's just where I came from.  So, I'm still here.  

I suppose getting lost in that corn maze was a good reminder, though, for me.  I need those kind of reminders every so often, even if they do come in the form of muddy paths, ridiculous winds, screaming lost children, and stalks of corn slapping me in the face as I walk by.  I need to get lost a little more often.  And be okay with it.  

Taylor went on to write in her book

When the safety net has split, when the resources are gone, when the way ahead is not clear, the sudden exposure can be both frightening and revealing.  We spend so much of our time protecting ourselves from this exposure that a weird kind of relief can result when we fail.  To lie flat on the ground with the breath knocked out of you is to find a solid resting place.  This is as low as you can go.  You told yourself you would die if it ever came to this, but here you are. You cannot help yourself and yet you live."

She goes on to say 

You will think of other ways to get lost, or to accept that you really have gotten lost through no choice of your own.  It can happen anywhere, in all kinds of ways.  You can get lost on your way home.  You can get lost looking for love.  You can get lost between jobs.  You can get lost looking for God.  However it happens, take heart.  Others before you have found a way in the wilderness, where there are as many angels as there are wild beasts, and plenty of other lost people, too.  All it takes is one of them to find you.  All it takes is you to find one of them.  However it happens, you could do worse than to kneel down and ask a blessing, remembering how many knees have kissed this altar before you.

I only hope I can practice the art of getting lost a little more often, both in the literal and figurative sense.  I'll just know not to text Pig17 next time around.