In Praise of Being Lost...
And what happens when we wander, in wonder?
Sometimes I wonder where they come from, those random earworms at random moments….
Bits of songs float on the air, get snagged for a moment on some little sticky place in my mind, like birds resting on a fence or the power line at the intersection, and when they perch there I try to listen.
I’m surprised by how often the feathers of a familiar hymn float in. Maybe it shouldn’t surprise me; those are among the first memories sung into my life. Ours wasn’t a musical family; no one seemed to be able to play an instrument and my dad was the only one who could more or less "carry a tune in a bucket". But we went to church on the regular, and we had one of those giant old record players that lived in a console as big as meat freezer. We listened to Willie Nelson, and the Christmas albums that the local Firestone Tire store gave out during the holidays. Ours was not a musically sophisticated clan.
Every Wednesday morning of my kindergarten year our teacher, Mrs. Teal, gently ushered us into the dark and formal chapel of St. Andrews Episcopal Church, halting only long enough to stab a bobby-pin through a paper doily and secure it onto the head of each little girl. I still don’t know why we needed doilies on our heads but the visceral memory is sharp. We slid into the dark-as-mahogany wooden pews, and tried to sit still, being in God’s house and all. And there began my liturgical formation. We said the Lord’s Prayer (debts, not trespasses, requiring revision in the Methodist confirmation class that came later). We sang Holy Holy Holy.
Maybe it was the imposed and assumed reverence, or maybe it was knowing that Mrs. Teal adored all of us, or maybe it was the sound of those words and their repetition and the mysterious and enormous sound of the old pipe organ or the flood of color shimmering through the grand stained glass windows but my little soul opened to the sacred. It was more than sensing, more than knowing. Maybe intuiting? Something big was going on, and I didn’t have words for it, but it was Good and I knew that.
All these decades later, I know so much less than I did then. But I still know that The Big Goodness doesn’t live exclusively in a chapel or in a garden or in a book, that it can’t be contained, and still can’t be described. I’m beginning to “know” how much I don’t know.
And I think that’s why the old words of the old hymns still speak to me. Sometimes those old-fashioned phrases and images touch and ignite my five-year-old pre-skeptical experience of wonder, the childlike trust in The Good, The Love, The All.
I think it’s about the wonder.
In 1747, Charles Wesley wrote:
Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heav'n to earth come down, fix in us Thy humble dwelling; all Thy faithful mercies crown!
Jesus, Thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love Thou art; visit us with Thy salvation; enter every trembling heart.
Breathe, O breathe Thy loving Spirit into every troubled breast! Let us all in Thee inherit, let us find the promised rest.
Take away our love of sinning; Alpha and Omega be; end of faith, as its beginning, set our hearts at liberty.
Come, Almighty to deliver; let us all Thy life receive; suddenly return and never, nevermore Thy temples leave.
Thee we would be always blessing, serve Thee as Thy hosts above; pray, and praise Thee without ceasing, glory in Thy perfect love.
Finish then, Thy new creation; pure and spotless let us be; let us see Thy great salvation perfectly restored in Thee.
Changed from glory into glory, till in heav'n we take our place, till we cast our crowns before Thee, lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
Lost.
Lost in wonder.
Lost in love.
Lost in praise.
Lost in The Big Goodness. Absolute Perfect Love. The All.
I get lost there, still.
Happily, sometimes.
And I do mean, lost, yes.
I’m often lost: lost in the questions, lost in the tears, lost in the longing and yearning and missing. Also, just as frequently: lost in the gratitude, in the sweetness of memory, in the possibilities unknown. Lost in the All, and in the Awe.
Being lost can be terrifying or confusing, AND invigorating or delightful or wondrous…
Lost in a library? Lovely. Lost in the Museum of Modern Art? Yes, please. Lost in the tube in London? Well, it was an adventure and pretty fun.
One of the things I’ve learned in lo these many years is that it’s better to be lost together than lost alone. In London I was lost with one of my best friends, and we had an adventure and a story to tell and we met several lovely and helpful Brits and by the time we wandered out of the Highstreet Kensington Station we’d solved the puzzle, and congratulated ourselves over a lovely meal and a glass of wine at the little Greek cafe that we probably wouldn’t have found unlost.
Being lost alone, though? That’s scarier – at least for me.
For one thing, I don’t want to look lost – so I act like I’m really headed somewhere, and walk with that I know where I’m going countenance, the one that says Don’t mess with me. Because, well, I don’t want anyone to mess with me. Mostly, though, I don’t want to look lost.
But at some point, I have to sneak a peak at the gps on the phone without looking like I’m confused, or maybe even ask the nice young barista in the coffee shop, but asking in that casual I kinda know but maybe you know better sort of voice.
Tom and I got lost once in Marrakech…
We’d decided to walk from our hotel to Jemaa El Fna, the enormous square famous for snake charmers and orange juice vendors and monkey handlers and henna tattooists and story tellers and the savory aroma of kabobs on grills and spices, acrobats and musicians and peddlers of miracle medicines. No one seems to know what the name means, but our research pointed toward something along the lines of The Square Where it All Ends or maybe The Place of All Places.
When we realized we didn’t know which way to go, Tom asked directions from a man carrying an impossibly giant roll of carpet. The man smiled; he was polite; it looked to me that he wanted to laugh but he didn’t. Follow the energy, he said, pointing up the street to our left.
Turns out following the energy leads to the place of all places, the epicenter of energy. We found ourselves saturated in color, music, smell, people. So many people! We heard a few languages we recognized and many we couldn’t begin to identify; we watched people of every hue wearing every possible combination of garment. We gawked at monkeys and snakes with their handlers, tooth-pullers and haircutters and body piercers and inkers, we watched life dancing dancing dancing everywhere.
Follow the energy, he said.
Good advice.
That was ten years ago, when we followed the energy into the heart of Marrakech. Later, we followed other kinds of energy , discovered other fascinating places, met other remarkable people.
I’m a seminary grad, I’m ordained in the Christian tradition, I have a doctorate in theology. I can be moderately fluent in our tradition’s language about God. And, while I still have the vocabulary, I find myself less and less articulate. The mystery of The Big Goodness leaves me speechless.
There’s so much I don’t know about This Perfect Love, the All. I say “God”, but I’m trying to mean so much. I say mystery, I say hope, I say Creator – but words are inadequate.
In these last few years, and these many losses, I have more questions than answers. I don’t understand pain or suffering. I don’t believe that “everything happens for a reason” or that “God won’t give us more than we can handle”. Frankly, I’m angry about seeing people suffer, especially – selfishly – the ones I love. It’s awful, and it doesn’t make sense to me. I want to speak to Management; I want do-overs.
I’m lost, sometimes, in all the loss. Lost in the questions.
But this interesting thing has happened, and is happening still: I’m okay with uncertainty, with questions, with doubt.
I trust that Love wins…
And I think this is because I still trust the Goodness. I trust that love wins, even when I don’t know the how and why of the hard stuff. I trust the Wonder. Anne Lammott writes that “Grace bats last” and I believe that. I wish I could explain why, but you’ll just have to take my word for it when I tell you I trust it. I trust that the Goodness, the Grace of It All - that it’s the real thing. I trust that following that Energy will get us to The Place of All Places, the epicenter of Good, the Heart of Love. I trust that we will discover Wonder.
I’m okay with not knowing. I’m okay with not understanding.
Even in the confusion of it all, even in the sorrow, even in the fog, even in the lostness – I trust that not knowing is part of the wonder, and I trust that mystery is beauty. The mystery and wonder of it all: the fact that we had that time together; that any of us have any time together; that we all have the extraordinary and beautiful privilege of sharing a little delight now and then, together; that we get to follow the energy and the passion and get a glimpse, sometimes, of the wonder.
What if not-knowing is the gift, the beauty, the epicenter of Wonder, Love, and Praise?
What if we choose, more often, to follow the energy, and trust the Goodness?
What if we get lost there?
Oh, Becky, how beautifully you transported me back to Wednesday mornings at St. Andrew's with Miss Teel! Yes, yes, yes, we could feel the Presence in that place and in those moments and Fr. Moreland's hands on our heads for the birthday blessing. The draping of the cross with purple during Lent, the candles, even the fidgets of us littles gave us eyes open wide and hearts open wider to the Love that we knew, KNEW, reached out to us, wherever we would go.
A wondrous sermon in itself. I needed that. Thank you. Been lost in London with my wife many times and actually had fun! But we were lost in the Paris underground once; that was NOT fun.