Found: Lost for Good

    I just want to tell you a story.  It’s about my first experiment in stealing, and hopelessly lost things being found.

    Some possessions are just special.  Some things give you that little thrill of excitement.  Like a remote control car for the first two days after Christmas, except some other things give you the same feeling for a longer time.  Well, I had this one jacket that was just special.  Several years ago, Dad and I were walking through Sears (or maybe Penney’s)and I put it on. We both thought it looked pretty cool, but jackets aren’t that practical in AZ.  You might find a good reason to wear one about three times a year, and two of those are only if you go camping.  The brand of the jacket was U.S. Army, which I’ve never seen on a clothing label before or since.  I was tempted to buy it, but when I realized that I would probably only wear it twice a year, I decided against it.  I put it back with a shrug.  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t see this jacket again.  It was the last one on the clearance rack, probably the U.S. Army’s one and only attempt to enter the civilian marketing business.  So, then dad picked back up and bought it for me.  Sometimes, he just did things like that.

    Anyway, for some reason, I didn’t bring it to Wheaton my first year here.  I guess it was just lost in my closet somewhere, (which if you’ve seen my closet, might be hard to believe).  I had a bunch of other sweaters and hoodies and fleeces, so I was ready for this cold thing.  So I didn’t have this jacket at all freshman year.  Or maybe I had it at Wheaton and I just wasn’t sure when to wear it (it took me a while to figure out winter clothing, I’m still figuring out proper scarf etiquette).   Then, sophomore year, I started wearing it.  I wore it to a David Crowder Concert in October.  I wore it to HoneyRock on the Men’s Glee Club retreat.  And people kept complimenting me on it.  All that to say, I really liked this jacket.  I had only worn it a few times, but it was comfortable.  It looked cool, (apparently, other people thought so too) and I was finally in a climate that encouraged multiple layers of clothing.

      I know I just spent two paragraphs introducing an article of clothing, but the point is.  I liked this jacket.  I realized just how much I liked it when I looked in my closet and realized it was gone.  Suddenly, it struck me just what a great jacket this was, how special and irreplaceable it was, and how well it fit me.  Whoever ended up with the jacket couldn’t possibly appreciate it as much as I did.  I thought for sure that I had left it behind on the fall break retreat.  It was probably still in Wisconsin.  Entirely irretrievable.

    I hadn’t seen the jacket since last fall.  At the beginning of this year, I remembered it and was pretty bummed out that I knew I would never see it.  It stinks to know you had something pretty special and you lost it in some careless moment.  If only I had been paying attention that weekend and actually thought about hanging on to my jacket.  So then, I was sitting in Chemistry class, in the basement of the science building.  I haven’t spent much time in the basement.  The physics department is on the third floor, so I don’t go down there often.  After class ended, I was packing my backpack and I saw an identical jacket hanging on a hook on the wall.  There’s a little emblem on the left sleeve that makes it pretty distinguishable.  I was struck with mixed emotions.  Was this my jacket?  Did someone else have the same jacket?  Had my jacket been sold in the lost and found sale?  Or did someone donate it to the co-op where someone else found it?  I could go pick it up now and wear it right now, and it would be mine again, but what if someone else had a claim to it?  Would I be stealing it from them?  I decided to leave it for now.  I hadn’t seen my jacket in nearly a year, and there was no way it could have ended up in a classroom in the basement hanging on a hook on the wall.

    The next week I noticed it still hanging there.  Why was it still there?  Maybe the person who owned it worked in one of the basement labs and they kept it there.  They must wear it to school everyday and leave it there.  The next class it was still there.  This time, it was warm outside.  Why would anyone wear a jacket in 80 degree weather.  Maybe whoever owned this other jacket had forgotten it.  I left it again. 

    That afternoon, I came back.  To see if it was still there.  It was.  I struggled with the temptation to take this jacket which looked just like mine.  But even if it was my jacket, maybe someone else had a better claim to it.  Maybe the finders keepers losers weepers thing actually represented some kind of common law.  I envisioned myself picking  up the jacket and being accosted by an angry student who demanded to know why I was wearing their jacket.  Then they would bring a public safety officer with them and an rapid tribunal would take place: 

“Whom does this jacket belong to?”

“Me!”

“me”

“Did you place the jacket on this hook?”

“YES!”

“no”

    On the other hand.  This was mine.  My father gave it to me.  I knew that the jacket in front of me had been given to me, and somehow, I knew it was mine to take and keep, even though I had lost track of it for nearly a year, and I had no idea how it had reappeared in my Chemistry class.  I took it off the hook and stuffed it into my backpack.  It felt all wrong.  I felt like I was stealing.  I really didn’t want anyone to see me stuffing my backpack with this item that sure seemed like it was mine.

    The next day, I was in my apartment.  The jacket was in the couch next to me and I happened to be fiddling with an inner pocket.  Inside the pocket, I found a concert ticket stub.  It was from the David Crowder Band concert I had attended the year before.  With that last confirmation, I knew this was mine.  I knew that what I had certainly lost was once again in my possession.

    Ever since this happened I’ve been trying to think of some significant tie in or spiritual analogy.  There are lots of lost things in the Bible, especially people.  I guess it could be like Jesus, waiting for someone who looks hopeless to come back.  Maybe a tighter analogy would be someone who lost faith or hope or peace and they would never see it again.  But then there it is.  Right under their nose, waiting to be picked up.  The point is, that hopelessly lost thing.  It might not be.  If that’s not good enough for you, make up your own analogy.  (comments beneath =)