Grace’s Search Party
| I have a friend named Clay. He’s a little unpredictable. Alright, he’s completely unpredictable. Clay is the kinda’ guy you call if you’re going on a crazy adventure. He’s down for anything – jumps in first, asks questions later. My kinda’ guy. I moved to Boston this year after graduating from school and Clay was on his way up to Beantown to hangout for the weekend. He and a few other friends in the area had rented out a hotel in the city close by, and we had all planned to meet-up and spend the weekend tearing up Boston together. I was excited to meet up with everyone, especially Clay, because we graduated together, and he has the kind of contagious adventure spirit that you miss when he’s not around. He changes the dynamic of a group of people. When Clay shows up and is in the mix, anything can and will happen. And that’s exciting. It can also be a little scary if you’re not up for surprises. But Clay doesn’t apologize for that, he just is who he is – and he owns it. On a blistery winter Friday, Clay, accompanied by our friend Erin, flew into town. We met for lunch briefly that afternoon, but I had to head back to work and finish out the day before we could meet up again later that night. Excited to see my friends, I called them after getting home. Erin answered me, and we decided we would meet up for dinner as Clay was passed out taking a nap from a long day of flying and exploring the city. Lobster rolls and clam chowder, we decided. What else do you get in New England? We finished a quick meal nearby the hotel that Clay, Erin and my other friends were staying at, the Boston Park Plaza. Heading back to the hotel after downing our food, we met our friend Meredith in the lobby of the Park Plaza, who had just flown in from Philly. Walking into the lobby of the Boston Park Plaza was like stepping onto the Polar Express. That’s truly the only way I can describe it. It had a magical sense to it. It was its own world in there, what was beyond the revolving glass doors faded, and the lobby of the Park Plaza was all that seemed to exist. Sculptures, kids running around like it was a jungle gym, and multiple cocktail parties filled the enormous space of the hotel lobby. Eagerly heading up to the top and 15th floor, we bantered away catching up at where we had all been in life since we’d last seen each other. Ding! We had reached the top. Busting open the door we set eyes on a room that looked like Erin and Clay had been in living for a couple days more than a couple hours. The bed sheets were rustled, suitcases half-open with clothes out and other possessions were scattered across the room. Not seeing Clay as we first walked in we yelled his name and pounded on the bathroom door, “Clay!!”. Meredith and I were excited to see him and have what would be a “tackle your friend” kind of reunion. There was no sign of Clay in the bathroom. Grins spread across the three of us. Clay was playing a joke. He was under the bed or hiding in the closet, we were sure. Meredith swung open the closet the doors yelling his name again, but no Clay. I got down on all fours, pressing my stomach against the hotel carpet to look under the bed. Clay wasn’t there either. We laughed it off as Meredith got settled in, “We’ll call him and see where he’s at, he probably woke up from his nap and went to get some food or something.” We called Clay’s phone only to hear it vibrating on the nightstand next to where he had been sleeping. “OK, he doesn’t have his phone”, we laughed again. “He’s definitely at the bar”, now we were sure. He had gone down to the bar and was probably talking it up with whomever he ended up next to. So, we headed down to the hotel bar together, still skipping around and excited to be hanging out once again. It didn’t take more than a few steps off the elevator and surveying the lobby to realize that Clay was also not at the bar. Puzzled, we started to joke about all the places he could be or the trouble he may have gotten into. You really can’t rule anything out with Clay, so we came up with some pretty good stories. Meredith was starving from her flight so her and Erin decided to order some food and drinks in the lobby restaurant. I agreed to go back upstairs, check the room again, and walk around the hotel a little bit to search for Clay. This way, if he happened to come back in the hotel or try to leave, Meredith and Erin were right there in the lobby and would be able to catch him. Back to the fifteenth floor. I opened the door to the room and flipped the lights on as I took a look around once more. There was no sound. I knew Clay wasn’t in there, but I thought maybe I could find something that would tell me where he went. I looked down and stared dumbfounded at what I saw on my now second trip up to the room. I pulled out my phone and called Erin, “Erin..you are not going to believe this”. “What!?” she responded nervously. “Erin..Clay’s phone, his wallet, his shoes and his jacket are ALL in the room sitting here”, I laughed. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do. This was the middle of winter, and one of the coldest days we had had yet in Boston. There was two feet of snow outside and it was still coming down. Clay left the room without his phone, his wallet, his shoes and his jacket?? Where the heck could he have gone? “There’s no way he left the hotel” I told Erin. I was convinced. How could he do anything outside or in another building without those four things? “The good news is, we know he’s in the hotel now”. “Yeah, but where the heck is he?” Erin remarked back. I smirked, “I have no idea. The search is on.” I mentioned the hotel felt like the Polar Express. That’s because there was so much going on, it was like a huge party in there. There must have been three different events going on simultaneously, at least it felt that way, and none were the same. Some people were dressed in nice suits and dresses while teenagers ran around in pajama’s. I made my way around the various party events, imagining that I’d stumble upon the bare-foot Clay striking up a conversation with a stranger or indulging in some food. We had figured it out for sure this time. Clay had probably gotten up from resting and walked outside the room, WHACK! The door slams behind him and he’s without his room key, his wallet, or any of his stuff. That had to be it. So, he ventured elsewhere to kill time figuring we would run into him later. After all, it’s one hotel, how could we miss him? There was no sign of Clay mixed in with the hustle and bustle of the Park Plaza crowds. Just people staring at me as I searched every corner of the ball rooms and open dining areas. “Ah, the bathrooms” I thought. I quickly checked each public bathroom on the entertainment floors – no sign of Clay there either. Luckily the gentlemen behind the closed stalls were nice of to respond to my “Clay??” with a firm “No”. Coming up empty handed, I met Erin and Meredith back in the lobby. “Guys, I’m getting worried. Seriously, what if Clay got kidnapped or something?” Erin said only half joking. Two hours had passed. And this was starting to get a little strange, even for Clay. I wasn’t too worried at this point. We had actually lost Clay on an island off the coast of Spain a couple years prior, so it seemed like this hunt for him would be easier than the last. Before we had searched for him throughout an entire island off the coast of a foreign country, this time we just had to find him within four walls. “I’m going to go check the Irish bar next door” I said reluctantly. It was a blizzard out there, deep down I probably knew there was no way he had left the hotel in a blizzard without shoes or a jacket but again, you can’t count the kid out for anything. So, I went. I asked the concierge guys on my way out, “Have you seen a bare-foot guy, about my height, brown hair?” I showed them Clay’s license since I had his wallet. They shook their heads. Out into the blizzard I went. As soon as I got to the bar next door I was asked for my ID. I knew right then that Clay wasn’t in there, he didn’t even have his ID. I searched the bar anyways and went back to the lobby to meet Erin and Meredith. “No sign of him there either. I don’t know where the heck he is.” “Maybe he’s at the pool or gym” we thought out loud. So, I asked a woman nearby who was dressed in the hotel’s uniform if our friend could be in the pool or gym. “No, he would need his room key to get in there” she said. I explained the whole situation to her, but she looked at me kind of funny and asked how long we had been looking for him. “Four hours” I said grudgingly. Her facial expression changed to startled immediately. She called to her fellow-staff members on her walkie talkie to get the word out about Clay. Now we had the whole hotel staff at the Boston Park Plaza looking for our friend. Twenty more minutes went by, and we weren’t getting anywhere sitting around. We marched to the front desk and explained the whole story to the guy there. Of course, after giving him the ten-minute version, he called over the hotel manager and asks us to repeat the whole thing. She was great and immediately asked her staff to check the camera’s. “We will find him”, she said with determination. With nearly four and a half hours now passed, I was hoping she was right. As the staff went back to check the camera’s I felt like we were sitting ducks, wasting time. “Take him with you” she said to her employees. They nodded, and suddenly I was now the lead investigator of Clay’s search party. “Alright, Erin left the room to meet me around 6:45PM” I told the Park Plaza security staff. I was now back in a hidden room with a bunch of screens that showed all different angles and areas in the hotel. As we scrubbed back through the footage I realized the best angle we could get was right outside the elevator. We watched Erin leave alone to meet me at 6:45PM, just like I had said. And then the waiting began. We painfully sat through an hour of footage, jumping up and focusing in on any person that even slightly resembled Clay getting on the elevator. Finally, we made it through to the point where Meredith Erin and I had gotten up to the fifteenth floor and were heading to the room for the first time. There was no Clay in-between. I sat there and stared at the screen while I thought. “He’s in that hallway. He has to be in that hallway” I told the main security staff guy. “We didn’t see him leave the floor, and he was there when Erin left. So, he’s still there.” “You’re sure he’s not in the room?” the security staff guy asked me. “Yes, I’m sure” I said almost mocking him. “Do you mind if I check the room?” he asked. “Let’s go” I told him. And up to the fifteenth floor we went again. Opening the creaking door and flipping on the lights once more, there were Clay’s things right where I had seen them last. The guy puzzledly searched all the places we had already looked earlier, the bathroom, the closet, under the bed. He wasn’t there. We looked at each other, standing there in the hotel room and without saying a word I knew we were both thinking this didn’t make any sense. On our way out, I noticed two stair cases, slated on either side of the hallway. “Can the camera’s pick these-up?” I asked while I already knew the answer was probably no. The answer was no. “Well, we have to check the staircases” I said. “You take this one and I’ll take that one?” the security guy asked me. “Let’s do it” I confirmed. Boom. We shot off down the separate staircases and echoed Clay’s name down the various levels. The only sound I heard back was my thudding footsteps bouncing off the walls as I made my way down the all-white corridor. We both came out at the bottom, and neither of us had found Clay. “He has to be in that hallway” I told the security guy. “We’ve gotta’ knock on doors”. I knew he was in that hall, there was no way he could be anywhere else. The cameras didn’t catch him, and we’d been looking for over five hours. Something was up. Something unordinary, even for Clay. I met with Erin and Meredith back in the lobby again, “No luck” I told them. They were getting worried. I was getting worried too. The jokes about Clay having possibly been arrested or kidnapped were becoming more likely by the minute. We contemplated calling the local Boston jail. We were at that point because, well, where else could he be? The security guy and I were headed back up to the fifteenth floor for what felt like the fifteenth time. We knocked on the door across the hall first, no answer. The muffled sound of a TV playing could be heard from the other side of the door as we approached the next door down. The security staff guy gave two knocks followed by a loud “Security” as we waited for the people staying there to answer. A disgruntled old lady answered the door with a look on her face that said, “There better be a good reason why you’re knocking on my door at 11PM”. There was. But for whatever reason, my security guard aid decided to lie. “There’s some kids staying here and being loud, we’re just checking out what’s going on” he told her. “Well, do I look like a kid?” she bolted back. “Sorry to disturb you” the security guy said in a wimpish tone. I looked at him confused, “Why didn’t you just tell her we’re looking for a missing person?!?”. “We can’t keep knocking on doors, I’m not doing that again. I’m gonna’ go back down stairs and check the camera footage again” he said as he made his way back down the hall to elevator. He was dead to me. I was already looking up and down the hallway deciding which door to approach next, and I would be knocking alone. I made my way back down the hall towards the room where my friends were staying and examined the doors closely on either side at the end of the hall. I froze. One of them was slightly open. It was just barely open to the point where I couldn’t even see that it was open, I could just tell that the handle was not sticking out quite as far as the other rooms. My gut was telling me that Clay was in there. I walked up to the door and pushed it with just enough force to confirm that yes, this door was cracked open. I stepped back. What will happen if I bust into this room and there’s people in here? I’ll scare them to death, probably get thrown out of the hotel and maybe even get charged for B&E? Who knows? I called Erin and Meredith. I figured it would be better for me to break into a room with two girls than by myself. A young guy breaks into a room by himself and is “looking for his friend” didn’t sound like it would be too convincing if I had gotten caught. “Erin”. “What??!” she spazzed. “You found Clay???!”. “No” I said slowly. But, I’m standing up here. And I’m looking at a door. And the door is just BARELY cracked open. I think we should go in. I’ve already knocked on it and no one answered. I don’t want to break into this room by myself.” “We’re coming right now” Erin said quickly before hanging up. Erin and Meredith zipped down the hall and met me at the end where I stood staring at the partially cracked door. “Clay??” Erin called out as she knocked heavily on the door. “Clay!!” she knocked harder. “We’re coming in!” she announced as she pushed open the door. A silhouette standing in the cracked door space came into clearer focus as the door opened fully. Standing there, looking like he had been hit by a train, was Clay. We had found him. “Clay!!! Whose room is this? What are you doing in here? We’ve been looking for you for hours!!” Erin and Meredith spat off a rapid fire of questions, but Clay just stood there looking disillusioned. I started cracking up as I stood there in the back trying to hide my laughter from Clay. We had just spent nearly 6 hours looking for him and I didn’t want to let him off the hook that easy. Erin grabbed his arm and we led him back into our own room quickly next door, shutting the dark room’s door behind us. Clay sat down on the bed in our room as we were all still speechless that our 6-hour man-hunt had found Clay less than ten feet from the room. Erin and I laughed hysterically outside the door-frame before heading back into our own room. “It’s not funny” Erin said, changing her to tone to serious before cracking a smile again. “We don’t want him to think this is OK”. “I know, I know. Where the heck has he been? What was he doing?” I whispered back to her. “I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless.” Erin hushed back. We entered the room and began asking him again. “Clay, you do realize you were in another room this whole time? What the heck happened?”. And then came the brilliant answer, the one we did not want to hear, nor did we believe. “I don’t know” he said as he looked at us dumbfounded. He walked us through what he remembered. “I laid down to take a nap, and I don’t remember anything after that.” I was holding back the laughter. “Clay, seriously man, where were you? I don’t believe you. We literally looked everywhere for you. You just got up and went to the other room? Why? And how did you get in? Someone had to let you in?” Clay just stared blankly letting out a small laugh, “I don’t know”. After five more minutes of questioning, we determined Clay was telling the truth. He literally had no idea. He had been sleepwalking. “I’m sorry” he told us. It was now midnight and after spending what felt like an entire day searching for Clay, we were all ready to get out and do something outside the Boston Park Plaza. Before we knew it, we were out in in the city having a blast like we had always planned to before Clay had slept walked and thrown a wrench in our night. We were out having fun as if it had never happened. We weren’t angry, we weren’t upset, and if anything, it just made us closer and more grateful to be together. What would our time really be if we didn’t lose Clay? That comes with the territory. We accepted it, and we loved it. We love Clay for who he is. He keeps us on our toes. And he himself is quite literally an adventure. Why is it that Grace is any different than my friends and I searching for Clay in the Boston Park Plaza? I don’t think it is. I think it’s the same. I think although most of the time we probably fall into the trap of telling ourselves that we have to earn it, or work towards it, or seek it out as if it’s hiding from us – Grace is searching for us. Climbing fifteen flights of stairs, knocking on every door and searching every dark room. Grace meets us where we are. A lot of times, we’re actually hiding from Grace. And maybe not always intentionally. Sometimes we get lost. And it’s up to us to be willing to be found. Shame is the ultimate cloak that works tirelessly to mask Grace so that we don’t ever give ourselves a chance at being found and soaking in the freedom and forgiveness that Grace is. Shame clouds us with lies, it tells us a story that isn’t so. All to keep us from Grace. But Grace doesn’t cease to exist, it keeps searching. It is more relentless than the shame is dark. But, if we can’t accept it or choose to live in it, we’ll remain lost. I think there’s times where we all see ourselves as “too far gone” when Jesus knows we’re just right around the corner, less than ten feet away, maybe even doing a little sleep walking. We’re not perfect. We’re sinners. We need him. He knows this, and he loves us. He offered Grace to us through his own body on the cross. It would be a greater sin to deny that Grace when he shed his blood for us so that it could exist. And just like we exaggerate how far off the beaten path we are, we tell ourselves stories about what our relationship with Jesus will be like or not be like because of what we’ve done. As if God will look at us as less. We either don’t bother or we cower back, feeling the guilt long after. Guilt’s stains can last years or a lifetime if we allow them to. And guilt is a weapon shame wields mercilessly. The truth is that the way Jesus looks at us is probably something similar to the way we looked at Clay when we found him. Relieved. Concerned about him, but glad to be with him. Joy. Joyful to spend time together like we had planned. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t care about where we’ve been or what we’ve been doing, it’s that he’s glad we’re home, and he wants to be with us as we get to where we’re going. I imagine he’s going to spend more time hanging out with us and sharing good laughs than dwelling on where you were the last 6 hours, 6 days, or maybe even 6 years. He wants to be with us for where we’re going next. He wants to heal. And for us to heal, we need to accept Grace. I want to live my life more like Clay waking up from sleepwalking into the room next door at the Boston Park Plaza. To reunite with my friends, to reunite with Jesus, and to be able to just be me. To be who I am and be accepted for that. Even when I wander off sometimes. To be found. To know and live in two truths – Grace meets us where we are. And the King of the world thinks we’re worth searching for. We tell ourselves Grace is earned, but the truth is, it’s organized the greatest search party of all time for us. |