Lost and Found

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Ever explored New Orleans with more than 33,000 young people?  It’s quite an adventure!  We explored being Disciples, Servants and Peacemakers.  Everyone seemed to be on the path of discovery and new experiences.  I had the pleasure of accompanying one of our young people back to the convention center to look for a backpack and a pair of shoes that were left behind the day before.  We were excited that we were indeed able to simply find the Lost and Found booth.  There we had a curious experience.  We described the backpack that was left, “It was a green Columbia day pack with yellow piping.”  The attendant went into the next room and returned with a back pack.  It looked like the one we had lost but it wasn’t   She was undaunted.  She returned again, and this time she had the right one.  Curiously, the contents were missing.  We mentioned this and she asked us what was in the back pack.  So one item at a time, we described the lost contents of the backpack.  One item at a time, the attendant would go and bring from the back room an item that seemed to fit our description.  We were in luck, four of the six items that were in the back pack were found.  When we came to the water bottle, our Lost and Found helper, simply smiled,  nodded her head and pointed to the 12 LARGE boxes to her left that were filled with every make, model and concept of bottles used to keep one hydrated in the heat of July in New Orleans.  She simply said, help yourself.  There were even new bottles from one of the event displays that perhaps did not want to take the inventory home.

On our way out, I happened to peak through the doorway into the mysterious back room from which lost things are retrieved and was astounded to see aisle after aisle and table after table of sorted, categorized and lined up items all lost and not yet found.  The volume could have filled twenty dump trucks.  I couldn’t believe it!  Who knew that some much lost stuff could be generated from such a gathering?  Well, there were 33,000 youth, not to mention some 6,000 adult leaders, chaperones and event providers.  I guess it makes sense but still boggles the mind.

This whole experience left me wondering how much of our stuff we loose (most of which we can live without).  But if this describes our human behavior how much that is really important to us do we misplace, forget about, abandon or simply fail to keep track of?

What help or hope and healing is there for this characteristic of our humanness?  Perhaps the parable of the Prodigal Son (or is it the parable of the older brother – or the parable of a father’s love) gives us some hope for humanity that is busy loosing things and one another all the time.