Lost & Found

Whether it's a cardboard box like our church's or a whole department like King County Metro Transit, just about every organization has a Lost & Found. When you think about it though, shouldn't it just be a Lost Department? Afterall, as soon as the lost item is claimed by it's rightful owner, it's gone.

Then again, the lost item was found by someone before it was turned in. In which case, chronologically it should be called the Found & Lost Department. I'm not sure that also applies to people, though. I've coached my children to go to a store employee if they happen to get separated from me. In this instance, no one actually found them. Are we just back to the Lost Department then?

Finally, where are we supposed to go when what we've lost is ourselves, our sense of who we are, our identity or purpose or soul or whatever it is that seems to make us who we are?

Should there be a Lost Department where we could find "ourselves?" If so, would we go there to turn ourselves in or would we go there looking for that missing part of "us?"

Here's a poem to sit with, if you find that you're lost.

When You Get Lost

Tell me what you do

when you get lost
Tell me

Tell me what you feel
How things look to you

What happens in your head

What you say to yourself

Tell me

Can you see anything

when you get lost

Can you hear what's about you

Do you percieve life at all

Tell me

Tell me what scares you most

when you get lost

can you draw from ddep inside

What you use to hold you up

Do you move yourself differently

Tell me

Tell me what you do

to reach that special calm

can you direct a prayer

when do you know to wait

When do you know to risk

Tell me

Tell me what you do

when you get lost

Tell me

Then tell me

How you know

When you not lost

no more

Tell me

- Carol Prejean Zippert

Maybe when it comes to people, Lost & Found are always together.