During this last bit of time in 2012, I’m even more convinced to follow Barbara Brown Taylor’s suggestion that 2013 be a year of frequent adventures, grand projects, honed skills, and feats of daring. Although the daring part still has me stumped. Oh well, I’ve still got over 24 hours to complete my list of resolutions.
And although my list is already very long, I’m mindful that I also must practice getting lost. Now being a man, I can always fall back on the statement that “I’m not lost, I know where I am, I just don’t know how to get where I’m going.” But, in reality I’m one of those people, as Ms. Taylor suggests, that has lost my way more ways than I can count. I anticipate that despite all good intentions and resolutions I’ll find myself lost again this year, finding myself heading out in one direction planning to accomplish some grand project, and ending up by circumstances beyond my control completely in a different place with no map to tell me where to go or what to do next.
Many of my life’s destinations were not pleasant at first, but like Ms. Taylor, I wouldn’t give a one of them back. I’ve found things in the darkest of spots one could imagine, that I would’ve never discovered if I’d stayed on the path I carefully set out on. Ms. Taylor suggests in her book An Altar In The World that we practice getting lost. She offers two reasons. The first, is that whenever we try to stay on a set and safe path there is a cost. A huge part of that cost is our freedom. The second, is that no matter how carefully we plan to stick to the safe and set path, life has a way of knocking you off of it and taking you somewhere you could never expect. It’s what we discover in those lost places that can enrich our lives if we overcome our fears.
So for 2013 plan on some grand adventures, but be prepared that the grandest one of them all just might be the time you are lost.
Why, when God’s world is so big, did you fall asleep in a prison of all places? Jelaluddin Rumi.
Happy New Year.
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