Emily my oldest daughter, and Melissa have this ongoing joke. Whenever they are lost, or even don’t know where i happen to be taking them, they say, “I think we might be lost traveling buddy (their name for each other). Oh! There’s Meijer! Now i know where we are!"
It goes back to a story from months ago, when they were in Indianapolis together and had somehow taken the wrong turn somewhere and neither had any idea where they were. Feeling lost, they at least kept going (reminding me of a Winston Churchill quote - "when you’re going thru hell, keep going”) and only a minute or so after saying how they both had no idea where they were, they turned a corner and saw the, now famous, Meijer (that my wife knew because she had driven the 60 miles to Indy to get the first Blue Bell ice cream in our state month before - which says something about her and our family in general…).
I was reminded of this recently.
I have been really tired. Working hard. Busy schedules. Broken lives. So many hurting people.
There are times that the weariness of it all gets into my head and starts to remind me of a time when i was overwhelmed more than ever before and ever since. A time that led me into the darkest days of my life. Days spent in utter emotional agony, turmoil, lostness. In that time all i could see was darkness in those days. Hopelessness was my song. Despair was my future - or so it seemed. I was not suicidal, but i certainly would not have cared if i didn’t wake up the next day - if i could sleep at all.
The weariness i felt just prior to all that darkness was not the cause of the darkness - it was just the culmination of a lifetime lived the wrong way.
But sometimes when i feel really weary, i am reminded of the darkness. And i start to feel afraid. Defensive. Protective. Without knowing it sometimes i start to retreat inside a little bit - thankfully not as much as i used to - when living with me was like riding the latest and greatest Cedar Point roller coaster - up and down, back and forth - it was crazy. The retreat takes me into myself and i start to think about me and what i need and who’s going to take care of me - i start to become someone different than who i really am.
That has happened recently. Tired. Grieved inside, but with no time to weep the tears that lurk in my soul.
It was in this state that i was reading recently. I was not reading anything profound or philosophical. I ws resting my mind in the pages of good fiction. Good fiction by one of my favorite good fiction authors, Jacqueline Winspear. The book, entitled, “The Care and Management of Lies,” is about World War 1 and 2 English families that go through it. There are chapters of vivid descriptions of the war - and how no one would ever be the same after facing those trenches, the death, the barbed wire, the losses. I sat there reading and i began to feel all the feeling that i had not been able to (really who takes time in the middle of the busy schedule of a family practice office to weep over the loss of a patient, or over the death of divorce, or the maiming of sexual abuse, or the mine field of depression). The tears flowed and it felt good to be human…to be compassionate. In those moments, i remembered the war i fight in. I remembered that i fight on a battlefield where people spend their lives searching for the wrong things - where the damage is not with machine guns, but in courtrooms and where the barbed wire is racking pain across our children who are neglected and abused. I fight in a war where there is a better way. Where the hopelessness of my past has led to hope for each day - even the weary ones. Where there is goodness and laughter and real relationships and people who care. Where meaning is measured not in what you have, but in who you are and how you love.
It was a Meijer moment.
I turned a corner and saw Meijer in the pages of that book. I felt lost. But i wasn’t. God knew where i was. He knew i was weary. I did not need to protect myself. He was driving the car.
So, if you are feeling lost. If you are are not sure where you are or where you are going. I know this group of people you should meet. We get together every other Thursday night (the next is next Thursday, the 29th of October), from 645-800 and we savor some moments of life - we notice some amazingness of life - and we look for ways to journey in a different way.
We get together at McAllister Recreation Center, just off 20th and Schuyler Ave, Lafayette.
Maybe it’s time for a Meijer moment for you.
Hope to see you there.
