Lost

With today's GPS gizmos, Mapquest and all sorts of maps and atlases, it doesn't seem possible that one should be unable to find a particular location. But there I was, in a distant city with which I had only limited familiarity, and I kept going in circles as I tried to locate a friend's address. The cell phone didn't help much, either, because I couldn't understand the directions my friend gave as they related to my current position. It turns out, we were talking apples and oranges. I came in on one highway, and they thought I had come in on another -- somehow we had failed to clarify that little detail on the front end! But all's well that ends...

It reminded me that in our society today there are plenty of folks who have apparently lost a sense of direction in life. They have lots of tools to help: education, social mores, often reasonably good upbringing, the advice and counsel of well-intentioned friends. But they can't find what they are looking for. Nothing satisfies. Could it be they are lost, in a spiritual sense, and don't really know it? And when they hint at something like this, the unwitting disciple can sometimes miss the signal or be talking apples instead of oranges. We may be inclined to immediately talk to them about the journey's end when in fact we don't know where they are starting from. We can't be of much help unless we really pay attention.