Biography
Fr. EDWARD BECK is a Roman Catholic priest of the Passionist Community, whose first book, God Underneath: Spiritual Memoirs of a Catholic Priest was hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “a gracious and graceful work of spiritual wisdom.” Fr. Beck lives in New York City and travels internationally as a preacher and retreat leader. His new book, Unlikely Ways Home: Real Life Spiritual Detours, has been praised by Publishers Weekly for its winsome style and broad appeal. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"The Joy of Being Lost and Found" 
Once I got so lost that I began to wonder if I'd ever get found.

I was on a thirty day retreat in a hermitage, no less, in the hills of California. I'd decided to take a long walk to a beach about five miles away that I'd heard was a wonderful place to watch the sunset. And indeed it was. The reds and oranges and purples that transformed the blue sky and ocean were so mesmerizing that I didn't realize how soon those colors would turn to black. And before I knew it, it was dark, and I still had a long journey back to my hermitage in the still unfamiliar woods.

One-half hour or so after I began my walk back, I started to panic. None of the landmarks looked familiar to me. I'd never seen them at night before. I began to hear strange animal sounds as I walked down paths I was sure were covered with poison ivy, or even worse. Suddenly, a large nocturnal insect decided my neck was a welcoming landing pad, but I was sure that one of the circling bats I'd seen had dug it's claws into my now trembling skin. I screamed into the night air that echoed emptiness back to me. I was lost and afraid.

Chapter 15 in Luke's Gospel has always intrigued me. We tend to remember that Chapter because of The Lost Son or Prodigal Son story, one of the most famous stories in all of Scripture—and rightfully so. It's a wonderful story about two lost sons, really, and a father who finds them both again, each in a different way. But earlier in that Chapter from Luke, there are two other stories about some lost items a sheep and a coin. It seems that Chapter 15 is "Luke's Lost and Found Department."

And it all begins with tax collectors and sinners wanting to listen to what Jesus has to say. But the Pharisees and scribes are complaining about Jesus and not wanting to hear what he has to say. But as is his wont, he tells them anyway. Luke says, "So, he addressed this parable to them:

“What person among you, having one hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets is on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance."

There is a passion and joy here for wholeness and inclusion that the Pharisees and scribes simply don't get. They're too busy worrying about whose supposed to be left out and excluded. They don't seem to get that when something or someone lost comes home, joy is the result. Wholeness and inclusion produce joy for anyone with a heart open to embrace it.

The same is true for our lives, isn't it? When people we love are away or missing, we don't feel whole. We're not happy.

We are happy though at family reunions—at least, usually. (Maybe there's one or two who show up that we wish hadn't!)

We're overjoyed when we're greeting loved ones at airports after they've been away from us.

We're joyful when we find parts of ourselves that we have hidden or denied or covered-up and we can bring them into the light.

When we can confront an addiction, embrace a weakness, make friends with a fear, accept our vulnerability. This is happiness.

We're glad when we're able to include people who've been left out because of the color of their skin, or their economic status, or their sexual orientation, or their religious beliefs. Because some of us know what it feels like to be on the outside.

Inclusion produces a wholeness that overflows into joy, when we let it. We can't help it. We're made for wholeness and inclusion. And whenever we live in that state, joy is the result. And when we don't, war, and prejudice, and discrimination and being lost are the results.

As I wandered lost in the hills of Big Sur, California, I felt totally disconnected from everything familiar. I was anxious, afraid, excluded from that circle of care and safety so important for me to feel whole. I wondered if I would find my way home again before it was too late. And so, I began to pray. To pray for someone to find me.

What's always intrigued me about the Lost Sheep parable is that the shepherd leaves the ninety-nine in the desert, the wasteland, to go find the lost one. What in the world were they doing in the desert, with nothing to eat there? Why the wasteland? Why not the meadow of Psalm 23?

Because as the theologian, Jack Shea says, even the ninety-nine were lost in some way. We're all of us, always, in some state of being lost and needing to be found—even when on the surface we appear to be part of the flock. Being lost comes in degrees.

When the "perfect number" of one hundred sheep becomes ninety-nine, they are not whole until the really lost one is found again. But the ninety-nine in the desert will have their turn at being lost, too.

When the woman with the perfect number of ten coins loses one, she can only find joy with her neighbors when she finds the one she lost. When "10" has been restored.

When the Father with the two sons has lost one to greed and debauchery and one to resentment and jealousy, he cannot celebrate in joy until both are restored to him. Until both come into the house and are finally under one roof again.

Wholeness and inclusion. They produce joy. In a society and political arena today that is seemingly intent on division and exclusion, and focusing on our differences, this is an important message. And sometimes the way in which the inclusion happens is most significant of all.

Who of us has not seen artists' renditions of the Good Shepherd?

Luke writes: "And when he finds the lost sheep, he puts it on his shoulders with great joy." He carries that which was lost home again. He shoulders the burden and struggle of being lost, and rejoices over the finding.

Do you know what that feels like? To be carried...

In your life when have you needed to be carried, when you just couldn't do it alone any more?

Who has rejoiced at finding you when you'd wandered away from the fold?

Who has shouldered your burden when you couldn't carry it alone?

At the moment in those hills of California when I was at the brink of despair, I saw two lights in the darkness, moving at a distance, like parallel fireflies. But as the lights grew closer, they grew in size and luminosity, until I realized that they were car headlights on a road that was surprisingly only 10 feet from where I was wandering in the woods.

I ran toward the lights until I reached the road. The car was maybe twenty feet away from me. I began to wave my arms into the night air, hoping to be seen, hoping to be found. The car began to slow down as I moved to the side of the road. As it inched toward me, the light inside went on and I saw the smiling face of one of the monks from the Hermitage.

“What in the world are you doing out here at this time of night?” he said from the safety of his sputtering Toyota.

“I was lost,” I said, my voice shaking.

“Well, you're not any more," he said. "Get in. Geez. You city boys."

And as I settled into the softness of the well-worn seat, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Take me home,” I said to my tonsured chauffeur. “Sure,” he said and smiled. “And I'll brew you a nice cup of tea before sending you off to bed.” And he might as well have been putting me on his shoulders and carrying me, so comforting and safe was his presence.

There's a strange paradox about the Christian life. Often, it's more about being lost than found. It's more about feeling incomplete than whole. It's more about feeling excluded than included. Because many of us live in those places most of the time.

But that's why we need redemption. That's why conversion is at the heart of who we are. Because we all get lost in the desert, even when we're part of the fold. And we all need someone out there., willing to go looking for us. We're always in the process of trying to turn back, to find our way home again. And it's a struggle.

But it's a joyful struggle, because repentance is a joyous activity. It's the endless way that we turn back toward the truth and wholeness. How great is that? And life becomes this process of shouldering one another, of walking each other home. And sometimes we're the carrier, and sometimes we're being carried.

But all the time, it's a movement toward wholeness, toward being included again, toward being under one roof again. A sheep. A coin. Two sons. Us.

And what joy at being found.

Interview with Edward Beck
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Edward, in your message you tell us the story of being lost in California in the woods. It was dark, you were afraid, and you were rescued and carried home. As a priest, what have been those moments in your ministry when you’ve been the carrier of lost souls?

Edward Beck: There are probably so many, but one that jumps right out at me as you asked the question is when three girls from the parish where I was a priest were killed by a drunk driver in Vermont. I got the call in the middle of the night. They wanted me to go tell the families of these girls that their daughters had just been killed. And so going from house to house, to the three houses, and having to tell the families that their daughters had been killed was something that I never thought I would ever have to do and I never want to do again. Going through the experience with those families, at the funeral, the wake and the follow-up and mourning period, was horrendous but yet I really felt in some way I was given the privilege of helping to shoulder part of their burden and help them.

Talbot: Families lost in despair. What is the real difference between that kind of rescue and all the way home to a restored life?

Beck: I think that the restored life part just takes time. The rescue part almost seems like, “Oh, ok, I’m going to be ok,” until we realize that we are not for a long time.

Talbot: You’re new book, Unlikely Ways Home. Tell us about that.

Beck: It’s twelve stories of people who you would have never thought would find God through the circumstances that they did. There is a topless dancer, there is a gay couple, there is a woman with six children who loses her husband. I was fascinated that these people could, in their circumstances, find faith and find God. I wanted to write a book about them.

Talbot: And the formula, as you say in your message, of wholeness and inclusiveness results in joy?

Beck: I think so. I think most definitely. It’s when we don’t use that inclusiveness and that wholeness that we feel lost and afraid.

Talbot: Edward Beck, it’s a joy to meet you and to hear your message on 30 Good Minutes. Thank you so much.

Beck: It has been my pleasure.