Years ago Hardy gave me a big Bible -- Good News, Colour-Reference Edition. I bought a leather cover with a zipper for it. It has always been my "go-to" Bible for help when I prepare for Bible studies, Sunday School teaching, worship leading, or preaching.
Recently I used it for writing a set of devotionals. The topic was the prodigal son who wasted his inheritance in extravagant living, was "lost" and returned home to be "found" and welcomed by his father. Just before the story of the prodigal son, Jesus tells several other stories about lost things: salt that has lost its flavour, a sheep that is lost, and a woman who loses a coin (Luke 15).
After spending some time pondering the meaning of these stories, I replaced the Bible on the bookshelf and went on to something else. I soon realized I had left my phone in my office and went downstairs to get it. I saw the charging cord lying on my desk, but the phone was not there. Like the woman looking for her lost coin, I looked in every room of the house, but to no avail! Finally I called husband Hardy who is usually better at finding things than I am. Nothing turned up!
I finally realized that there is a call button on the phone, which I can activate with my iPad. Sure enough, I heard a faint "ding-ding" downstairs. It was coming from my bookshelf. Both Hardy and I moved books back and forth, but I told him I know for sure I didn't have the phone near the bookshelf. Then I touched my Bible and felt a vibration. "What??" You guessed it, dear reader! My phone had been lying on top of the open Bible. Not realizing this, I had closed the Bible, zipped it shut with the phone still in it and replaced it on my bookshelf!
My blogger friend, Marian Beaman, once wrote about finding her glasses in the freezer, a long time after she gave up looking for them. This is one of those stories. I'm tempted to extrapolate a meaning from this event but I won't! Instead I will point you to several books I'm reading to chase away the January and February blahs. They are also about what is lost, but much more traumatic in the losses they describe than the one I experienced.
Klassen shared with her readers that her novel was inspired by a story her mother told her when Sarah was a teenager. She hadn't been that interested at the time but the story stayed with her.
Like Klassen, Wiens listened to and collected many stories while preparing to write To Antoine. He carefully researched them and produced a novel that is searing in its recounting of a life first lived in a Mennonite village in Ukraine during the Stalinist era. He goes on to describe his protagonist's young adulthood among genocidal Nazis, his sojourn in Paraguay, and his later judgement as a war criminal. This is a book not easily set aside!
I wish you, my dear readers, the ability to live graciously with the losses you experience in life; to listen to stories and tell them to those nearest and dearest; to live with love in your hearts, not only during this month of love, but throughout the year!
Thank you for this Elfrieda! Living with losses is inevitable and it is hard. To live with losses graciously is a choice we can make. Not always an easy one, but still a choice.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your wise words, Marge! You have experienced loss and you have chosen to be gracious.
ReplyDeleteThanks Elfrieda for your excellent meditation on the universal theme of lostness, a theme close to the heart and experience of each one of us at various times.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading and commenting, Waldy. I look forward to seeing you and Wanda again after your long and exciting holiday!
ReplyDeleteThis is a beautiful post, Elfrieda, variations on the theme of lostness and loss. I wrote a blog post about Sarah Klassen with a review of her poetry collection, Tree of Life. Her writing a novel since then is positively astonishing. Yes, she is quite an inspiring role model.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reference to my vignettes on losing things. A followup to my original story of lost glasses is included in My Checkered Life: a Marriage Memoir, soon to be released. Thank you too for book titles to explore. :-D
Thank you, Marian, always enjoy your postings and will go back to see your post about Klassen’s book Tree of Life. She was one of the authors I used in my PhD thesis, comparing Jewish and Mennonite Literature.
ReplyDeleteHere is the link to the blog post and my review for Sarah's book. https://marianbeaman.com/2020/11/11/eating-sarahs-tree-of-life/
DeleteOn another note, It's a good thing you had your cellphone ringer turns on. Otherwise, you'd have to wait until you opened your Bible again. Great story!
Marian, I was wondering too how long it would have taken me to discover my phone if I hadn’t had the ringer! It’s a big Bible so I don't take it to church with me, just use it when I’m preparing for studies, etc. Thanks for the links!
DeleteJesus wanted to make some phone calls using a cell. Check for Heavenly rates and roaming charges! 🤗 lost and found moments of our lives!
ReplyDeleteHilarious! There are so many ways this story could go! Thanks for the laugh!
DeleteLove the image of the cell phone zipped up in the Bible. One is tempted to turn a story like that into a metaphor. But, like you,I will show restraint. May your losses be small and your gains be great today.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your well wishes for this day, Shirley! Hardy always tells our grandchildren “Every day is not the same.” (Usually when they’re having a rough day!)
DeleteThanks again Elfreda. Once again just what I needed. Living with losses with love and consistency. You are a wise woman.
ReplyDeleteLosses are so difficult and it’s usually only in retrospect that we can begin to understand that there are also things we gain when we lose
ReplyDeleteGreat topic Elfrieda. We are all so different when it comes to coping with losses of things or people. When I lose something at home these days I don’t focus on the loss …I just tell myself the item will show up sooner or later… just happened the other day & two days later I found it…had to make do in the meantime! Physical loss of a person not so easy. I know two women who are best friends and both of them lost their daughters when they when they were in their teens. One friend chose not to visit the cemetery but found comfort in the memories of her daughter by surrounding herself with the daughter’s pictures and personal items. The other friend chose to visit her daughter at her resting place where she felt close to her. Both carrying on as best they knew how and supporting each other with LOVE❤️
ReplyDeleteAbove comment by Ruth Jansen
ReplyDeleteThanks for illustrating some positive ways of coping with loss of both things and people. I often leave things too, after a thorough search and then spy them in places I would not have thought to look! Depends on what it is and how desperately it is needed! Loss of friends and loved ones...another story. Can’t get them back again in their physical presence, but oh, the memories!
DeleteI always look forward to your posts, Elfrieda. They always get me thinking!
ReplyDeleteMy highly superstitious Irish grandmother would have said, "Wee people, wee people, Borrow and lend, Bring back my phone, as soon as you can". I miss her.
A feeling of melancholy often comes over me when I think of loss. Today, however, I'm going to make a list of things I'm happy to have lost. Thanks for sharing.
Robbie
What a cool idea, Robbie, to make a list of the things you are happy to have lost! Sometimes we don’t even know how miserable something makes us until we have lost it!
ReplyDeleteFrom Stacey
ReplyDelete"Both look like interesting reads and I too love the notion that creativity, vitality and sharing extends in the winter of one's life. To be in my 90s and doing the same would be a goal! Love the notion that your cell phone was wrapped in the Bible as you were reading about losing things. Loss is not always a negative, like Robbie suggested, honouring what we have enjoyed losing is a great way of seeing things not as black and white but as nuanced and experiential as all things. A whale's death supports a deep ocean ecosystem that continues to benefit for decades and perhaps centuries afterwards. We would mourn the loss of such a great creature only unless we learned how its death and subsequent settling to the bottom of the ocean floor helps create life for generations upon generations. We are all here because our ancestors in some ways managed to live beyond loss. Glad you found your phone and I will look for those books to read. Your posts always give me something to think about. Love you xx Stacey "
Thank you, Stacey. “Managing to live beyond loss...” That’s life!
ReplyDelete