Consenting to Be Lost

When was the last time you were lost?What kinds of feelings do you associate with being lost?I can remember -- with frightening clarity -- being lost in a grocery store as a kid. We weren’t allowed to have sugar cereal, so I’m sure it happened while gazing lustfully at a box of Trix or Cocoa Puffs, and when I looked up, my mom was completely out of sight. Terrified, I began running down those aisles of plenty, feeling abandoned and utterly alone. Now, before you freak out about the kind of mom who lets her kids wander off in a grocery store, you need to remember this was the seventies; there were no cell phones, no GPS devices, and no helicopter parents. Kids would ride their bikes for days without any communication from their parents, and they’d only come back when they were hungry. At least that’s how I remember it.But in that grocery store, I was lost and I was terrified.As adults, most of us spend truckloads of energy making sure we never get lost. Even now, when I’m in a new city and I’m about to go for a run, I never just start out and see where I get. I carefully map out a route before heading out the door. I love adventures. I just hate being lost.Barbara Brown Taylor has written a book called An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, which outlines about a dozen ordinary practices for those of us who are looking for the Sacred in the ordinary. Getting lost is one of the practices she suggests for any pilgrim who is seeking a whole life, filled with God and joy and fullness.Initially, that sounds all spiritual and sexy to me, in strange Thoreau-meets-Kerouac-meets-Bob Goff kind of way, until I realize that it would require me actually getting lost, which is about as appealing as being bludgeoned to death by angry (but stupid) trolls.But as I look back on my life, it is during those lost seasons that something was found buried deep within me, something I desperately needed for the rest of the journey.Brown Taylor writes about the kind of lostness over which you don’t have much choice. Like my friend Hayne, who is a robust, in shape fire fighter with two small children, who broke his neck and --oh, by the way -- also found out he has diabetes. Or like the shy couples who sidle up to me on Sundays after my sermons, to tell me that they’re infertile.She writes, “The advanced practice of getting lost consists of consenting to be lost, since you have no other choice. The consenting itself becomes your choice, as you explore the possibility that life is for you and not against you, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. This rock-bottom trust seems to come naturally to some people, while it takes disciplined practice for others. I am one of the latter, a damaged truster who hopes she has lots of time to work up to the advanced level before her own exodus comes. To that end, I keep my eyes open for opportunities to get slightly lost, so that I can gradually build the muscles necessary for radical trust” (An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, page 79-80).If you are in a season of being lost, I hope you get found sooner rather than later. It’s not sexy at all. You barely feel alive, much less spiritually vibrant in any way. But you are being found and something in you wants to be born, something essential. So, go ahead and hate being lost. Scream and rant. Be scared. That’s what we do when we are lost.And when you’ve done that, ask yourself this question: Will I consent to be lost, in this season? And if you are not in a season of being lost, perhaps you need to keep your eyes open for opportunities to get slightly lost. Go on a non-mapped out run. Have a non-mapped out conversation with that person with whom you're in conflict. Start something without knowing how it will end.Though utterly scary, getting lost might lead to some very beautiful places.Photo Source: h.koppdelaney via Compfight cc