This afternoon I took a little foray to a high-end market in a gentrified neighborhood to buy myself a chocolate bar. I needed an adventure with a satisfying conclusion. After lingering over the chocolate, I stood in front of a rack of greeting cards, and one in particular grabbed my attention. On the outside was a photograph of three middle-aged women on a streetcar or a bus, arms slung over their seats, heads thrown back with abandon, huge grins on their faces, each woman facing in a different direction with parcels and packages in a chaotic jumble all around them. The message on the outside was “Happy Birthday!” and the message on the inside was “You know you’re in the right place, if you’re lost!”

            I had just finished a conversation with a classmate over lunch in the dining hall about the mysterious and uncanny ways that Spirit gets our attention. We’d been talking about hard wake-up calls, and that led us to remembering all the other ways Spirit has of getting through to us--subtle, breathtaking, even humorous. So, there, in front of the card rack, I burst out laughing. And I would have fallen to my knees if I had been anywhere else but the grocery store, because I knew I was on holy ground. Tucked inside a goofy birthday card, the only card I opened, was the message I most need to hear. “Lost is a matter of perspective”.

            Religion is full of language about being lost and found. The Hebrew and Christian sacred texts begin with a story about being kicked out of Paradise, about becoming lost. One of my most exciting discoveries in Old Testament class was learning that the word repent simply means to turn around, to go back and find a new direction. All the heavy, burdensome meanings of the words “sin” and “repentance” were added during dark times by folks very much interested in being and staying in control of the institution of the Church. But sometimes it’s not a sin to be lost.

            Our human history is full of stories of arduous, glorious and gritty redemption. The story of the resurrection of Jesus is about redemption, about the power of love over the darkness and confusion of life, about the journey of learning that freedom comes when we recognize our undeniable connection to each other and to all that is. But its not the only story that grew out of our very human experience that we are somehow lost, disconnected, out of touch, or in need of redirection. Think of all the great literary sagas that involve journeying and getting lost, tales of arduous struggles leading to a triumphal return home and a hero/heroine’s welcome, a celebration that acknowledges that the journey has accomplished its task. The traveler is home to their true identity.

There’s hardly a culture that hasn’t needed to tell a story about coming back to who we are, that hasn’t needed to hear the deep inner truth that its alright, there is always a way home. You’re already there, breathing in and out, feeling the blood pulse through your veins, aware of the sights and sounds around you. Alive, because aliveness is what it’s all about. Deep within the physicality of life there is one truth, one light. We are all one body, one pulsing, vibrating being that physicists use rhapsodic language to describe. And even in the hardest moments, moments of shock when everything we know is suddenly unrecognizable, and we can’t reorient, because none of these landmarks were on our map; even then, even there, we are that grace, the love that is life itself.

Today I needed to be OK with lost, with the tender place of turning around, here on this ground that was one place a few weeks ago and now is another. This ground that I thought was leading somewhere else, was leading right here, it turns out. As the shock wears off, it’s beginning to feel like sacred ground. This place where I’ve landed was on the map, but now it has a different name. And it’s all right with me if we call it Lost, because sometimes, just like those women on the train, I know I’m in exactly the right place, if I’m lost.