Lost

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves." by Henry David Thoreau 

Anyone with halfway decent Google skills could search any topic and find a relatblerlatablerrelatblerrelatblerlatablerelatblerlatablerrelatblerrelatblerlatablerrelatblerlatablerquotes. I knew I felt lost, but different have a specific line to pull it in - thus Google saved the day. If only Google could answer the meaning of life, the universe, and everything.... Oh wait, it can. The answeransweranswer is 42.

For the non-Geeks The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is the reason for life meaning 42, and no we don't know why it is that way.

There are so many beautiful thoughts about being lost. It seems that most great intellectuals, poets, or writers have at one time talked about the idea of being lost. For those of whose spirits feel a sense of lostness its ironic how little consoling these ideas give. When one is melancholic lost, someone discussing the beauty of discovery through being lost sounds quite drab - perhaps even superfluous. 

I read a book, and like many people discover with the right type of books, it changed my life. It was a book that was encouraging and challenging. Yet like most things in a matter of weeks, months its lessons were all but forgotten. I am in the desert of lostness now, and the grain from yesteryear seems but a mirage in the back of my mind. 

Yet, ironically enough, it spoke to being lost. While that is not a title of a chapter, nor is it a key point, I would say that Prototype discusses throughout it the process of being lost and even perhaps a way to be found. For the average Christian we have heard the metaphors of being lose and now found to the point where it seems inapplicable to real life. Once we are saved we aren't lost anymore right? In the process of being the one that the Shepherd comes after, we will never again find ourselves wandering in a wilderness. At least that's what we expect. Yet we all hear about the process of wilderness, of going out to the desert to discover our identity in God, much like Christ had to. (Another thought from Prototype.) But what if we are  in the wilderness and don't even know it? Wandering, meandering, wondering why the things that once satisfied leave us so empty? It is this sense of lostness that I speak of - a holistic separateness from even the most intimate of circumstances, not knowing how you got here or why. 

In Prototype, Martin talks about the Gerasene demoniac in a very beautiful way. 

"He had a name assigned to him before the foundation of the world, a name he had lost touch with." In man cultures to know ones name is an intimate rite few are given privilege, it is attached to one's true identity and here we seen this demoniac lost his name, lost the very sense of who he was. Martin goes on to say that even in "the midst of his unending self-destructive behavior, in the midst of his round-the-clock angst, amid the pitiless darkness of the tombs, the power of God broke through and reestablished the man’s name, his identity as one created in the image of the Father." 

Jesus broke through the lostness, and made this man whole - made him remember who he really was.

I guess that's the pain of being lost. When you lose who you are. Honestly I love getting lost on the road, taking various back roads just to discover the unfamiliar territory. (All while knowing that my GPS can get me back home.) At times being lost in direction can be exhilarating, an adventure, a challenge waiting to be overcome. But who of us wants to lose ourselves? 

We have all seen the characters in media that portray amnesia. For the most part they are placed in comedic situations, where we can sympathize but not be too wrecked by the lostness the other is going through. I think of 50 First Dates, where Drew Barrymore suffered a horrible wreck and since then wakes up every morning forgetting the day before, always replaying the day before her accident. The other main character played by Adam Sandler, falls for her and yet has to woe her on a daily basis - a tedious, and not always successful task. Yet in his love for her, he doesn't give up, and even in marriage, and raising children he reminds her on a daily basis who she is. 

In the process of our being lost we need a community to remind us of who were are.

If you have seen 50 First Dates, it is humorous to see the entire Hawaiian community Barrymore lives pretend to live in that specific day. They keep the same menu, newspapers, TV everything to help cushion her - but it keeps her from moving forward, from doing anything with her life. Its loving but an easy love. Sandler is not satisfied with keeping things at the status quo. He loves her, but wants her to experience life, to discover who she is now not then. 

Often times it seems the Church as the Body of Christ lives more like Barrymore's community, loving yet keeping things at the status quo. Afraid of the commitment, the uncertainty, the effort demanded to help her know who she is now and can become. When we as members of the Body get lost, forgetting who we are we need the corporate Body to dive deep, stay committed, and draw us back to who we are. There is definitely a time of isolation in wilderness, that is certain and is often exampled throughout the Bible. But there is also a real and definite need for community, so that when we see a lost heart we walk with them not judge them, leave them or ignore their real need. 

"He soon showed me such signs of friendship and respect, as made my heart glad; and I felt that, after all, mine would be no lost life." George MacDonald Phantastes

We need each other to help us find ourselves, in the midst of being lost, we need community to draw us back to the One who has spoken our identity. Often in our struggles, our times of being lost we feel we have lost everything, most especially ourselves. But in the words of George MacDonald's Phantastes, "I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost." Maybe your friendship, your commitment to be with me even in the lost times will help me remember to be found.