Because once you leave the cow path, the unpredictable territory is full of life. True, you cannot see where you are putting your feet. This means you can no longer to stay unconscious. You can no longer count on the beat-down red dirt path making all of your choices for you. Barbara Brown Taylor, Altar to the World
My heart skips a beat at the thought of leaving the cow path. Barbara Brown Taylor recalls the long-trodden track cows take as they go out and return home from grazing day in and day out. In a chapter entitled, “The Practice of Getting Lost,” Taylor shares how it is to step off the path we know so well. The territory becomes unfamiliar when we lose something that has grounded or oriented us – given us a sense of our place in the world—perhaps a relationship or a job. Or a death of a spouse or friend. Or when our children leave the nest. Our sense information changes — sites, smells, hopes and dreams, what we carry in our hearts. Suddenly, off the old path, we cannot take a step without thought or intention. For a while, being lost feels treacherous. And it is also life-giving.
I hate the feeling of being lost. Just stepping into an unmarked hallway can trigger a fear response. Adrenalin rises, my body tenses, and my breathing quickens. Will I be found? How long will it take?
My first memories of getting lost was when I was four or five.
While my parents could fit the whole family in one car, we took a trip to the East coast from the little town of Albert Lea in southern Minnesota. Five young children and two parents piled in the blue Ford station wagon. Three sitting in the front and four in the back, windows open, arms hanging out, no seat belts or air conditioner, we set out to see the landmarks of Washington DC. I was the youngest at that point. My older sister tells me mom was overwhelmed. We lived on a tight budget and mom had to keep us fed. We ate meals our hotel rooms, prepared picnics for lunch and on the rare occasion when we ate in a restaurant, it was inexpensive and fast.
We toured Mt. Vernon, the home of President George Washington on the banks of the Chesapeake. The pillared home was huge and ornate. Inside were cold Neoclassical marble columns, large windows and waxed floors. Outside the broad garden and lawn were green and lush. The garden included a vast maze of tall shrubs. As I strolled through it with my family, I became distracted by something only to look up and find I was alone. No sister or brother, no mother or father in sight. I knew only one response –to run. Run as if my life depended on it. It was only when my internal cries turned external that a stranger gently grabbed my hand and offered to find my family.
Another event was my very first day of Sunday School. We went to church every Sunday. It was a familiar place. Still, I had never been to Sunday School. My father brought me to my classroom, and I was invited to sit at a low table with six small chairs. There at the table was the Sunday School teacher who didn’t look like my mom or anyone I would know. Her tightly woven beehive hair and wearing an unfriendly brown tweed dress sent me running. Fear of the unknown overwhelmed me, and I did what any child would do. I left. I was quickly tracked down and brought in tears to my father, who was teaching third grade. Between sobs, I told him I couldn’t go back. With a reassuring pat on my shoulder, my father and the Sunday School superintendent brought me to a table with other wide eyed five-year-old and a teacher who could pass as any of our mothers.
My beaten down trek of raising a family and supporting a partner in his career was routine though full of adventures. It was what I wanted more than anything. I loved the views. The company. The challenges. Even the boredom and the disruptions. I had to step off the familiar cow path from time to time. Each parent’s death stunned me, and I grieved. I grieved when my sister courageously lived and died from ALS, and when we moved away from friends I had come to see as family. Those moments of being lost were consuming but I quickly would return on the path. And it was steadying and good.
My family now set for their own “cow paths,” and I am stepping off the one I have been on for three decades. Walking with new intention into areas I have not explored. I’m venturing into the unpredictable and unfamiliar. I will see people who won’t look remotely like my mom. The maze I find myself in may take many turns before I find myself in the clearing. This time, I’m not going to run or hide. I am going to do as Taylor suggests and consent to the choice that is ahead. And as I explore, know this life is for me. Even when I must climb over the fallen trees that cross my path and or find myself soaked to the bone from morning rain, this life is abundant with gifts to explore. Along with all that is new there will be guides who have stepped off into similar terrain, my family who loves me bracing me when I lose confidence and friends to cheer me when I succeed. And best of all, God will be on that path beside me.
