The Finder of All Things Lost

I lost my keys last week.  Or maybe I should say I misplaced them.  They have a designated drawer in the kitchen and they weren't there.  I believe it's an "age thing" though I have to admit that I have a life history of losing things.  I guess you might say that I've always been a little forgetful and sometimes not all that keenly focused.

When I was a kid, most everything I lost was critical to my immediate happiness.  When you're a kid, your beloved possessions are few and to lose one is usually a big deal.  I remember misplacing my favorite marble when I was in the second grade.  Admittedly, I can't remember yesterday's lunch but I have a crystal clear memory of losing my light blue cat's eye shooter.  My number one prized marble that rode in the right-hand pocket of my bluejeans wherever I went.  I was pretty sure that it was hiding somewhere in our front yard.  After dividing the yard into grids and walking those grids a dozen times, I finally did what I always did in stressful situations such as this.  I asked God to help me.  It wasn't a prayer per se...more like a mental request:  Dear God, I know you have much more important issues to deal with, but if you have an extra minute or two, would you please help me find my marble.  And I promise I'll do a better job keeping up with it.

It always worked.  I say "always."  And to my recollection, it always did.

I found my prized shooter that day and, as far as I can recall, I did take extra steps to safeguard it until the time that playing marbles became secondary to learning to "walk the dog" on my brand-new, shiny Duncan Imperial.

Back to last week and my vagrant keys.  I don't know about you, but trying to find something lost, or misplaced,  pretty much dominates my thoughts until it is found.  And I don't care to recall the number of times I've donned latex gloves and reallocated bag after bag of kitchen trash.  Some fresh and some not so fresh.  I'm not sure why that's one of the first places I always look.  It just is.  But, anyway, guess what?  After exhaustive searches throughout the house and along the path from the car to the house and back a few times, it was time to turn to the Finder of All Things Lost once again.  So, in the way that has changed very little from the time I was seven, I asked God to help me find my keys.  I had no sooner dispersed that little request to the stratosphere when it occurred to me that there might be a good chance that the keys ended up in a kitchen drawer but not the correct kitchen drawer.  I hustled into the house and opened a drawer next to the sink (the tape and scissors drawer to be exact) and voila!  There sat the keys.

The biggest difference between God directing the finding of lost things when I was a kid and now as an adult is that God insists on sending a little life lesson along with His assistance in recovering the misplaced item.  Sort of a celestial fortune cookie.  And this one revealed that God actually enjoys finding lost things, especially when that which needs finding is a whole person.  Or a broken person who needs to be whole.  I can't even come close to counting the number of times He's found me over the years.  Whether I was hiding or had simply lost my way, eventually God showed up with His big flashlight to direct me home.  Thank goodness the single stray is just as important as the properly placed ninety-nine.

There's a touch of irony in all of this.  I think I've been much more comfortable asking God to find marbles and keys than I have been asking to be found myself.  I wonder if that's just me or if that holds true for many.  I wonder if many of us are hesitant to ask for help on a large scale.  But it doesn't matter.  He's there when you need Him and nothing is to small or too large when it comes to finding what is lost.  Marbles, keys, or your way.  The Finder of All Things Lost is always on duty.

And, you know, when I really get to thinking about it, maybe things and people aren't really lost in the first place.   Maybe they've just managed to end up in the wrong drawer.

Weedeating

Weedeating is one of those handful of jobs that evokes an inordinate amount of dread but returns an inordinate amount of satisfaction.   If you've done it, you know what I mean.  If you haven't, then you'll just have to take my word for it.

The sort-of dreaded day and hour to check the line, fill the tank, poke at the primer bulb, and pull the starter cord arrived this past Tuesday at the farm.  I felt a little like a soldier headed for battle as I marched from the serenity of the back porch with the weedeater slung across my shoulder and a red plastic gallon of mixed gas dangling from my hand.

I admit that the day was pitch perfect for weedeating.  Overcast, decent humidity, and early enough that the heat-up of the day had yet to commence.  So I began.  About an hour into the job and in the middle of a particularly tough patch near the barn, I looked down and spotted a single sprig of blue flowers that had pushed its way out of the ankle deep growth of barnyard grass, broadleaf plantain, and bull thistle.  Pretty little things, they were a blue somewhere between the sky and my momma's eyes, each bud no bigger than the end of your little finger, and simply bursting with hope and enthusiasm.  A virtual oasis of sight upon an otherwise unforgivable terrain.

I failed to mention that one of the perks of weedeating is the ability to put your mind in neutral and let the thoughts flow.

When inspired.

As by something as simple as a tiny bunch of flowers.

And I thought that what I was seeing here in this snapshot moment of time embodied pretty much how I was viewing the world less than 24 hours before.  When I had the misfortune to be on Facebook, reading a few of thousands of comments of some totally unforgettable subject or discussion that had caught the interest of nearly everyone.  I suppose when I indulge my seedy side, it's like watching a train wreck in slow motion.  I simply can't look away.  You know what I mean.  When half the world is on one side and the other half takes the other side and the bickering builds to all-out verbal atomic warfare.

We are so divided as a nation - as well as a globe - that I sometimes wonder why the sun bothers to rise in the morning.  The ugliness!  Has mankind always been so hateful and social media has just given us an opportunity to really notice it?  Or is this something that we have become over the last several years?  I really don't know the answer but I'm talking an exchange of spewing, acidic hatred and evil words and thoughts that I never imagined could, or would, exist.

And it happens all the time.

But that's the weeds:  the crabgrass, the hairy bittercress, the Johsongrass, the redroot pigweed.  The spewing disdain, the vomitous scorn, the malice and contempt.  The weeds that are a real threat to our virtue and our humanity.  Humanity that is eons in the making.  Virtue that we developed through generation after generation of trial and error.

Choking, smothering, unforgiving weeds.

But that little sprig of blue flowers?  That's hope.  That's proof that beauty can co-exist among any volume of hate. And proof that the beauty that does co-exist can overcome that hate and stand on its own.  Beauty that says, "Hey, look...I'm right here.  I'm right here in the middle of any amount of nastiness you can create.  I'm God's gift to the world and I will not be ignored!  I am here in spite of all else."

And it's true.  That splash of beauty in the middle of that jungle of worthless ugliness is the only thing I noticed.  And it lifted me up.  And it reminded me that the world is what we wish to make it.  Like in that long exchange of condemnation and hatred in that Facebook post the day before, someone had posted a simple red heart.  An "I love you."  No other words...just the emoticon.  And it was as effective as that one spurt of blue flowers in the middle of all that stinging nettle.  The heart, and not the words that swamped it, was what gave me pause.

As long as just one of us is willing to find the beauty, all of us have a chance.

And, in case any of you are wondering, yes I did.  I carefully weedeated around those tiny blue flowers while virtually annihilating into oblivion every last weed in sight.  Atoms of green exploding into the atmosphere.  Satisfying disintegration of the highest order.

It was a very, very good day.