It should be so easy.

Friend,

I was discussing your life with another friend. Well, no, really, I wasn't. We were discussing one of our favorite shows, The Traitors. Four Traitors. Fourteen Faithful. Find the traitors and win the prize money. Simply spot the liars. It should be simple, right? It should be so easy to see who is twisting the truth around you. It ought to be so clear who is not your friend. Anyone can see from a mile away whom not to trust. Anyone looking down on your situation can easily see your next move. And why can't you. They're all shouting your next move. Can't you hear them?

It is like trying to navigate in the night. The problem is, of course, that everything looks different on the ground. In the dark, the markers aren't the same. Your mapping software doesn't always work, because you can't always get a clear and reliable signal-- by the time the signal hits, you've moved on, and it's telling you the move you should have made, but you're on down the road. You're surrounded by traffic that expects you to move; you've got to go or you're going to get run into or run over. Standing still may be many things, but whatever it else it is, it is certainly dangerous. And yet, sometimes it is easy to be frozen in place, not sure where the right path lies. The tools we have are wonderful, but only to a point. When we have come so completely to trust in our tools, we are broken when they are broken, and we are lost when they are lost.

Sometimes, I think, the people who look at your life arrive as if they are looking at you on Google Maps, from a mile away. Turn here. Go there. Take the next right. Then two lefts. And then you'll be where you need to go. Simple. Easy peasy lemon squeasy. And we'll all go home rejoicing. The disconnect comes in that you're deep in the city, surrounded by skyscrapers. And its night time. Street signs are hard to see. Turns are difficult to make. Some streets are one way. Other corners go by too quickly. And as much as the well intentioned would love to tell you how simple it is to navigate, you know they've never walked where you walk. It becomes more apparent with every direction.

When the Scientist and I went soloing to the Big City for the first time, the very first thing we did was get lost. We got off the El in the wrong neighborhood in Chicago. I was predictably distressed. The Scientist? Non plussed. "Dad, this is the best thing that could happen to us," said he. At that point, I was too dumbfounded to even reply. "Look. I've vacationed with you a lot. And you always get lost, right?" True enough. "And you always react the same way. Stressed, frustrated, and angry." True, as well. "So let's consider this a win. We've gotten this out of the way. We know what getting lost feels like, and we can cross it off our bingo card. Now let's figure out how to get back to home base."

Friend, you're going to get lost. I can promise you that. Life is messy. The journey will take you through the mud and the thickets and the forests and the city in the night more than once. The only thing I can offer you is this. Take the journey with people who love you-- people who know what lost feels like, and people who are committed and able to help you get home. Those are the kind of people, I think you'll find, who won't shout advice from on high. Instead, they'll walk with you, use the gifts God gave them, and get you back to home base. Because when you're in the middle of it, life is often anything but easy answers and simple choices, no matter what the people watching from their couches will want to tell you.

And in the mean time, if you are worried as to where to find those people, remember I am here, no guilt, no judgment, no shame. I am just another traveler who knows what it is like to be lost on the city streets in the dark of the night. At the end of the day, I am just another mud covered muppet on the road, but I am glad to walk with you a while.

thus spake

me