Stumbling

In our time away I’ve rediscovered the quiet gift of stumbling upon. It’s such a simple grace when you admit you don’t know and stay open to whatever appears. You stand at a crossroads, look down a street, and say, “That looks interesting,” and off you go. Or you notice two promising directions and tell yourself, “We’ll come back to that one,” even though you know you might not. Sometimes the first path captures you so completely that you never return to the second. Your feet chose, and you followed.

“Stumbling” usually carries the sense of danger—of falling, of bruising a knee or stubbing a toe. But that little edge of losing control is part of its essence. You don’t manage it. You don’t plan it. You simply explore what rises up in the pathway when you let your feet lead.

And when you do, you find things you didn’t know to look for. A bronze Perseus by Cellini—an impossible feat of engineering, they once said—suddenly standing before you in the Loggia. An English couple who return to Florence every year because something here keeps calling them back. An Asian family at the next table ordering the same dish you had the night before, and you can smile and assure them they’ve chosen well. People who help you find your way, even without a shared language, simply because you look a little lost and they feel a tug to assist.

Stumbling along like this opens me to the possibility that I might be of help too. That I might be placed somewhere—not by planning or control, but by being led—to offer something small and needed.

A holy wobble

Isn’t that the heart of following faithfully? The earliest disciples didn’t map out their futures after the resurrection. They simply went. They found themselves led. They discovered what they could do because they weren’t gripping the reins of every moment. They trusted that wherever the next step took them, there was One walking with them who had already demonstrated the outcome of safety found within ultimate love.

Careful planning has its place. Control can keep us safe. But Christians who have learned that death no longer rules over life can grow into a kind of fearlessness—a willingness to stumble along, singing a song (as we may remember), side by side.