The Practice of Getting Lost

An exerpt from "An Altar In The World" by Barbara Brown Taylor

In my life I have lost my way more times than I can count. I have set out to be married and ended up divorced. I have set out to be healthy and ended up sick. I have set out to live in New England and ended up in Georgia. When I was thirty, I set out to be a parish priest, planning to spend my life caring for souls in any congregation that would have me. Almost thirty years later I teach school. The last time I tried on one of my old black cotton clergy shirts, the rotted fabric gave way beneath my fingers.
While none of these displacements was pleasant, at first, I would not give a single one of them back. I have found things while I was lost that I might never have discovered if I had stayed on the path. I have lived through parts of life that no one in their right mindwould ever willingly have chosen, finding enough overlooked treasure in them to outweigh my projected wages in the life I planned. These are just a few of the reasons that I have decided to stop fighting the prospect of getting lost and engage it as a spiritual practice instead. The Bible is a great help to me in this practice, since it reminds me that God does some of God's best work with people who are truly, seriously lost.