Lost and found

One week after our departure from Tanzania and arrival in the United States, I am still marveling at the speed of modern transportation. As we journeyed, I thought about David Livingstone, how in 1841 it took him three months on a boat to get from Europe to southern Africa, and today that trip takes less than a day. On our flight from Arusha to Amsterdam, I was entranced by the maps on the airplane video monitors: the screen showing the arch of the flight path, the blinking lines calculating airspeed and distance traveled, the map depicting where it was daytime and nighttime on earth. At one point in the flight, I awoke to find we were crossing the Mediterranean Sea, flying over an island south of Greece, and I marveled to think of the millions of people asleep below me, nestled in their homes while I hurtled though the time and space above them.

While I appreciate the speed with which my family and I traveled, I am aware that transitions happen much more slowly. My body may be firmly located in this patch of Pennsylvania woods, but I sense that some intangible part of me is still trailing behind, still meandering across the ocean. And I wonder if, for all of the inconveniences of three months on a boat, that kind of travel time allowed for human adjustment, kept pace with the soul’s slow arch.

During our second night back in Pennsylvania, the children all woke up at 3 a.m., hungry and energetic, and it became clear that none of us were going back to sleep. Eventually we surrendered to wakefulness and turned on lights and started unpacking bags, pausing only to shush the children, hoping that their rowdy play wouldn’t wake the sleeping ones in the house. As our small daughter sat in bed, clutching her blanket, she suddenly turned to us and said, “Want to go home!” My good husband and I looked at each other, and neither of us knew what to say. How do you tell this precious two-year-old that we are home now, that the only home she remembers is already lost, the things packed up or given away? How do you allow for the grief that always accompanies change?

For my small daughter is not the only one who is lost. I am lost in the supermarket, searching in vain for a jar of peanuts. My small son is lost in his emotions, crying and hiding under his bed. My grandfather is lost in his aging mind, and as I cook dinner for him one night, he keeps asking me where my mother is, and then where my grandmother is. I look into his puzzled face and nearly weep, grieving anew over my grandmother’s death, how much we all miss the feisty force of her love.

But if we are lost, then we are also found. I am found in the smell of the air, in the colors of the sunrise, in the burnt red of the dogwood leaves. I am found in the laughter of old friends, in the taste of apple cider, and in the warmth of my mother’s embrace. My children are found riding in the tractor with their grandfather, adding their small strength to the big task of splitting and hauling wood. Even my grandfather is found as he gathers his family around him and prays, the words like a tower of certainty and authority in a shifting landscape.

Fifteen years ago, when I was a college freshman, I crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the first time while travelling to London for a semester abroad. During the long flight, I found great comfort in the verses from Psalm 139 that read, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

I am still holding on to that promise. For the God I know is the God who never fails to find me. He is the God who pursues me, who goes before me and comes behind me, who surrounds me with his songs of love, even when I can’t hear them. He is the God who says to you and to me, “I see you, dear child. I see you in your weariness, in your worry, in your fear. I see you and I know you and none of this is a surprise to me. I knew what I was getting into when I called you, and I called you anyway. And I will keep calling to you, now and forever, because you belong to me.” Here, in his presence, we are held… we are known… we are lost… and we are found.