Bog Post 12 September 14, 2024 “Lost”

Lost. Actually, really lost. Not catastrophically lost. Not panicky lost. But lost.

I left early this a.m. for the first run in 3 days. We’ve been taking long walks and logging fifteen – twenty thousand steps a day, so I haven’t been totally sedentary, but I haven’t officially been running. And let me quantify—my version of ‘running’ is technically half walking, half running. That seems to be the best blend for me to up my heart rate and yet preserve my joints. So I’m not being all braggy about running, ok? In fact, my sister-in-law calls it ‘granny jogging.’ How’s that for a confidence booster?

In any case, this is what I know about myself--if I don’t exercise, a bunch of things happen. I get crabby. My body starts to hurt. And I feel like I’m being disrespectful to God because my body is a gift and I want to use this gift in the best possible way for the work God wants me to do, whether that’s in Johnstown, NY or Edinburgh, Scotland where we are right now. So this morning, I really had to run.

The problem is that I have the directional sense of a broken compass. I headed out thinking: “Just take right turns all the way” because then all I had to do to get back was take all left turns, right? But it was the dreaded roundabouts that confused me. Every quarter of a mile or so, there’s another roundabout in this country, and it did my head in, as Alistair would say. I did fine going out, and even found a really neat bike path at one point to granny-jog along.

Coming back, however, the roundabouts with their 4 exits in 4 different directions confused me, and within minutes, I knew I was lost, lost, lost. I tried to use my google maps, but it was confusing me even more. So I called for help. I called Alistair. I’d been gone longer than usual and I wanted to be sure he knew where I was. In fact, I kind of wanted him to tell me where I was and how to get back to the hotel.

I wasn’t scared, but I know I would have been if I couldn’t get in touch with someone familiar. I wasn’t scared, but it would have been hard if the weather turned bad, as it does here quite often. Sunshine one minute and then pelting rain and wind the next. I wasn’t scared but I started to say some prayers anyhow because I trust God and believed that God would help me get back, that God could give me strength, and I hoped that Alistair would be instrumental in giving God a hand with some of that.

And that’s what happened. I called Alistair and tried to tell him where I was, but I kept mispronouncing the names of things—something as simple-looking as the Leyland Roundabout isn’t pronounced the way it’s spelled, so he couldn’t locate where I was, but eventually he found me and got me on the right track.

I love that phrase—he found me and got me on the right track. And not only that, but as I was walking up the last stretch to the Inn, who did I see walking towards me but Alistair, making sure that I was ok. He didn’t make me feel embarrassed or stupid. He wasn’t angry that I did something risky. He just wanted to help me get back. That is so grace-full.

Sabbatical feels a little bit like that too. While I may think I know where I am going, the purpose of this trip is broader than getting to the right destination. In fact, I think it’s the wander-ways, the detours and the side trips that can carry some of the greatest weight and create the best stories. What goes wrong? What is challenging? What tests my boundaries? Where do I feel lost and can I find my way back home or when do I need help?

Next week we begin the European portion of the trip and I am excited/nervous. I feel as though more things could go wrong in Italy and Greece. I’m nervous about the language difference. I still only know how to say “Un cappuccino et un cornetto, per favore!”—a cappuccino and a croissant, please!—in Italian. That’s not going to get me out of trouble or help me find my way home again. But I will be well fed!

Today I think I got lost just so I could remember how good it felt to get back to the right place, and to remind me to ask for help when I need it.

"What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray." Matthew 18:12

I know this bible verse seems almost too easy to pop in here, but in a country where the sheep regularly break through fences, get stuck in the middle of the road, or end up in ditches they can’t get out of, it works and I know I’m like that too. I can get lost so quickly, as I did today, but I know that help, hope and healing are only a prayer (or a phone call) away. Thank God. Literally.