Last Sunday, after saying goodbye’s to folk after the service, I noticed a water bottle and phone on a seat at the back of chapel. Well actually it was Nigel who spotted it. I quickly realised it belonged to Joe, a young man who is a regular attender. I knew why he had too, we had been speaking for a few days as he had been preparing the eulogy for his grandmother’s funeral. I knew I couldn’t contact him so I took the items home and looked after them. A couple of hours later there was a knock on my door and there was Joe. He had realised what he had done. It took him some time I guess as he is not one of those people who is not constantly on his phone.
We talked for a while about grief and how the mind can be like Swiss Cheese at such times. Memory of simple things goes out of the window. You feel utterly lost and lose things constantly. I remember once leaving my wallet in the post office. Glasses in Tesco’s and another time after taking the service at Styal I realised I couldn’t find my car keys. I search around, but no sign, I retraced by steps from the chapel all the way back up the pathway to the main road, all the while cursing myself for my stupidity. When I got to my car I approached the door to find them there in the door. I had at least locked the door but for some reason, but I did not take them out of the door. I shared one or two other occasions too, like the time I thought I’d lost my car. I hadn’t I’d just parked it elsewhere. There are many occasions when I thought I had lost my mind. It has always been in times of grief. It is very common. So many people share similar experiences when grieving. We feel lost and do not know, to some degree, who we are. Life is unfamiliar, so of course we feel a little lost. Afterwards life is never quite the same again.
A friend told me this morning that she had lost the keys to her house. She had to got to her brother’s to get a spare set before returning home. When she arrived her home there were her keys in the front door. It happens to us all I reckon.
What I have found is that the key to getting through times of grief and loss is to keep on turning faithfully to life. To not hide away for too long, to not fully hibernate. To take care of the basics and to lean on to the folk around you and of course to your God, however you understand that. That which sustains you in the storm of life. In time you will come through this time of loss and feeling lost and come to a new world. Greater meaning and understanding often comes as we walk faithfully through the valley of the shadow of death. Life changes you, but so does loss. It has changed me, throughout my life. Living spiritually alive is not about transcendence, it is about transformation, formation, reformation. The key is to keep a little faith and to keep on turning. It is also vital to remember that we do not journey alone, even though grief can make you feel this way at times. We all get caught up in the storms of life. This is why it is so vital to remember that we do not sail this ship alone, we travel in this ship of love together.
Humour helps too. Sometimes you just have to laugh at your humanity and absurdity. I was reminded this week of some advice I once heard about losing your mind and car. “Do not worry if you lose your car, that isn’t the problem. You are in trouble only when you forget that you have a car.”
There was a lovely moment on Wednesday as I was writing the address this is based on, just before these exact words actually. It was a beautiful reminder of how lovely people can be. There was another knock on my door. It was one of my neighbours Lucy, her daughter has a dog called Molly also and I know them well from Café Nero and just out and about. I had walked into Altrincham with her earlier as she was on her way to a charity shop with a few things. She told me she was concerned that they wouldn’t take them as four had refused her last week. They said they weren’t taking any more things. She is a person with a deep social conscience. She was concerned about distributing unwanted things to those who need them. Anyhow an hour or so later she knocked on my door to tell me that they were taking things and that there is a distribution system in place. I was so deeply touched that she remembered the conversation we had and that she needed to tell me that things were ok. How vital it is in life to remember just how ruddy lovely folk can be. This is something that is so vital in life. It is in mine. I had also that morning had another conversation with a very lost soul who likes to give Molly biscuits. She was so caught up worry about the world. She spends most of her day wandering around lost and struggling to get through the day. We talk most days. I know it lifts her spirits just a little bit to give Molly those biscuits. It is so important to remember these things; how much we all need such things.
I received an email from a person anonymously they had lost something dear to her, vital to their well being. It read:
“Hi there,
I lost my navy bunny soft toy yesterday morning in Stamford square and I’m desperately trying to find her. I really need her back. Would you be able to keep an eye out for her or be able to put up her missing poster somewhere? Thank you ever so much.”
I obviously am not naming the person. This little toy may seem like nothing to most people, but it gives the person support with their social anxiety. I hope that they find what they have lost.
I have felt lost in grief at times these last 18 months. I don’t just mean at the loss of so many folk I know, so many friends as well as congregants. So many folk I have known and love. Also, a sense of loss and bewilderment at the world. We do seem to be living through divisive times. We forget we are all far more human than otherwise, that we are formed from the same flesh and have the same spirit in us.
This is something that no matter what happens in life we must never forget. Our lives, humanity, depends upon it. If we lose that, then we truly are lost.
Memory is a mysterious thing. Memory loss is a serious thing too. Our minds are affected by many things that can interfere with some basic brain functions. There are of course the many and varied forms of dementia which we are seeing and understanding more and more. I see it in folks I know, and I see the affects it has on those who care for folk becoming lost in such worlds.
I sometimes wonder about my own memory too, especially around traumatic times in my life. I was reminded of a peculiar memory recently. My brother’s eldest son Theo has recently begun University They broke their foot trampolining and were obviously struggling. There were some jokes on a family Wattsapp about how lucky they were that my former stepdad wasn’t there as he would have wiggled it about and told him to stop being soft and get on with it. This had happened to my youngest sister when she broke her arm roller skating. I had lived most of my life with a guilt about this. The way I remembered it was that I was the one that did this to her. I remember a few years ago apologising to her for this. She looked at me like I was a complete idiot, in fact she told me so. Telling me this is not what happened at all. That I had cared for her and it was her dad that did this and that I was there as it happened. I witnessed the act, but did not do it. I still struggle with accepting this reality. My mind does not fully remember this at all. I cannot find the whole truth of the memory. It tells me something about the state of my mind and memory at that time in my life. It also teaches me something about how memory so easily gets lost and that the truth can be hard to find especially in times of emotion, loss and trauma. Something we could all do to remember in these times we are living through.
It is also vital to keep a hold of the truth of beautiful memories of moments of deep care and love and attention too. Of what is good and loving and beautiful. Of every tiny bit of humanity. Our lives, our world depends upon it. I have been thinking of these a lot these last couple of weeks as I celebrated an important anniversary recently. I have been remembering so many people that offered so much love and acceptance in darker days. In days when I was very lost.
Now I know that this might sound counter intuitive, but being lost and feeling lost is not always such a terrible thing, especially if it leads us to look for a better way. I reminded here of a mysterious little poem by William Stafford “Cutting Loose”. Here it is:
“Cutting Loose” by William Stafford
Sometimes from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to.
Arbitrary, a sound comes, a reminder
that a steady center is holding
all else. If you listen, that sound
will tell you where it is and you
can slide your way past trouble.
Certain twisted monsters
always bar the path—but that’s when
you get going best, glad to be lost,
learning how real it is
here on earth, again and again.
As Parker J. Palmer highlights whilst reflecting on this poem. Maybe “the way of being lost” is important, perhaps even necessary at times, if we are to “cut loose” from business as usual and reach beyond for a far better world. Perhaps what is key is that vital reminder that “a steady center is holding all else,” and if you know where it is, “you can slide your way past trouble.”
It is just as vital to remember that the “twisted monsters” that always bar our path, need not defeat us but can prod us to “get going” amid the complex mix of horror and beauty of which reality is made. As we “get going,” our acceptance of being lost can turn to gratitude for being lost. Because if we didn’t feel lost then we wouldn’t look for a better way.
How vital it is to remember that even when we feel lost that all is not necessarily lost, we just need to find a better way.
I find something deeply reassuring in the fact that “lost and found” are paired together. I love that lost property boxes are often referred to as “The lost and found”. There is something very powerful in the journey of faith here. There is something beautifully paradoxical in all of this. It reminds me that if you want to be found you have to first of all get lost. It is the “Hero’s Journey”.
If I have learnt anything in life it is that the problem isn’t whether or not we will get lost at times, the question is how will we live when we get lost. Now of course the first step towards finding my way again is to recognise first of all that I am lost. This doesn’t necessarily mean literally lost, but lost in myself, whether that is lost in fear, self-doubt, self-pity, basically lost in my own underpants.
When I am lost in myself and find myself truly “lost at sea” I find that what has really happened is that I’ve separated myself once again from what I know to be true, about what is at the heart of me and the heart of life and have blinded myself to the light both within and without and I have once again walled myself in and I begin to feel alone and utterly lost. I have cut myself off from others and the love present in life. In such a state I can really hurt myself, I have done so in the past. I know when I am lost, internally I find myself giving in to guilt, to loneliness and defensiveness. While externally I will begin to blame others for this sense of lostness, resentment grows as does confusion in others. Don’t we all? When I am lost the solution might not be to go back to where I come from, the answer might be to find a better way.
We all feel lost at times. I have re-learnt once more how important that is. It keeps you connected to life and allows you to grow, to be transformed. This is the point of the spiritual life. This year I have re-learnt once again the importance of vulnerability. Everyone of us is vulnerable to the troubles of life. No matter how comfortable life might be at this moment that can be quickly shaken and all can be lost. There could be an unexpected knock at the door, or phone call one cold autumn day with news you don’t want to hear.
The problem isn’t getting lost, we all get lost at times. The problem is in losing faith that you can be found once again. The key is how we live when we find ourselves lost. Do we close down and get lost deeper in our fear, or do we pause and reach out and ask for help from those loving forces that are all around whether visible or invisible. Do we look for the better way.
I’m going to end with one final poem, by my favourite farmer poet Wendell Berry. It’s his “Sabbath Poem II”
Sabbath Poem II (1995) by Wendell Berry
The best reward in going to the woods
Is being lost to other people, and
Lost sometimes to myself. I'm at the end
Of no bespeaking wire to spoil my goods;
I send no letter back I do not bring.
Whoever wants me now must hunt me down
Like something wild, and wild is anything
Beyond the reach of purpose not its own.
Wild is anything that's not at home
In something else's place. This good white oak
Is not an orchard tree, is unbespoke,
And it can live here by its will alone,
Lost to all other wills but Heaven's -- wild.
So where I most am found I'm lost to you,
Presuming friend, and only can be called
Or answered by a certain one, or two.
From Wendell Berry’s This Day: Collected & New Sabbath Poems, Counterpoint, Berkeley 2013: 195.
Please find below a video devotion based on the material in this post
