Providence - Dec 23 2024

 

Providence

Dec 23 2024

The Lost and Found

was a large cardboard box

at the far end of the counter.

On a bleak day

in a hard year

I found those 3 simple words

oddly encouraging.

Was it the satisfying symmetry

that fortune evens out,

that what is lost will be found

at least eventually?

That in world that seems unfair

justice will be served?

If not now

then when all is said and done.

That in the end

even the forsaken, rejected, and lost

will find their rightful place?

Just as the wretched slaver

was redeemed by Grace

in the famous gospel song.

Because there must be a reason

we don’t say Found and Lost,

some foundational hope

that loss doesn’t last

and things end well.

That just as the arrow of time

goes in one direction only,

so life

goes from lost to found.

That life, if not better than zero-sum

is at least that.

I rummaged around

and helped myself to something,

a cheerful woollen cap

on a bitter winter day

to replace the one I’d lost.

Because in the grand scheme of things

doesn’t it all even out;

my lost hat

someone else’s brilliant find,

while the hat I helped myself to

is put to use

just as providence intended.

A lost hat

finding its purpose,

and a battered cardboard box

impartially providing.

Perhaps not exactly

what the box was meant for,

but I still felt good

heading out into the cold;

as if a circle had been closed,

the world

once again made whole.