parable
Suppose a man went on vacation with his family.
He packed carefully, wandering over to his computer more often than perhaps he should to check the live camera feeds at the resort. He checked the weather: warm, sunny, 20% chance of rain–always in the afternoon. He noted a few days with more cloud icons than others, then flipped back to the resort cameras. He liked the one of the beach area, especially—all that white sand and turquoise water, the vague impression of bathing suited people—but not too many—scattered across the private shore. He imagined himself there, felt the sun on his cheeks, heard the ocean crashing.
The man used an air can to blow dust off of his camera. He had not decided which lenses he would take with him. Every time he looked at the live feed from the beach, he wanted to take them all—thousands of dollars worth—but practicality warred against the artistic itch. There’d be the flight, all that glass with him on the plane. He selected a few—his most frequent choices, the ones that seemed the most versatile—and settled them into the padded compartments of his camera bag. Once he had the camera body packed away, he decided that since this bag held the most precious possession with which he would travel, he would also use it to carry all of the other important things for the trip. He tucked his wallet in the top, slid their passports, the tickets, travel documents and vouchers into the zippered pockets. The camera would be his only carry-on.
He packed the camera before he packed his clothes.
The trip was an amazing success. Well, at first. The minute the man’s family disembarked the plane, he with his camera bag slung snugly across his body, his wife remarked that the air even felt different there. Palm trees swayed outside the big windows, waving their fronds blithely, almost in greeting. Suddenly, the man felt very free, even with his children in tow, listening to his family chatter excitedly about this place, this time, the memories they would all make together.
It took all of three hours for them to settle into the atmosphere at the resort. Waiters brought them icy drinks garnished with big chunks of pineapple. The sand felt good on their feet, warm and soft. When they waded into the water, the man could still see his legs, the billow of his red hibiscus swim trunks, even after he stood waist-deep. He watched fish flick by in a blink. His children giggled, splashing. His wife looked at him as she had not in at least three years, eyes sparkling with unburdened, unhindered joy. He knew immediately: this vacation was a good thing for all of them.
For two days, they forgot all the details weighing life down. They paddled on kayaks in the sea, they ate at restaurants, they watched movies on a big screen on the beach after sundown. They laughed. They swam. They danced. And everywhere they went, the man carried his camera bag. When they went to the spa for a massage, he sat the camera bag beside the table where he lay. And whenever a staff member would lift it, just to move it out of the way a little, he would fidget. He had opted not to use the safe in his room, feeling a little skeptical. Besides, he never left his camera behind. He had a lot of money tied up in some very good quality glass, and he liked the idea that he could lift out the camera on a whim and spend hours snapping shots of their adventure.
And then in the middle of the last day, suddenly he realized:
the bag was gone.
Gone.
Gone!
He looked helplessly at the impression of it in the sand beside his chair on the beach. Oddly, he reached down and moved the sand with his fingers, as if the bag might simply be buried beneath the marks it had molded.
He tried to remember. Where had they been? Where had he taken the bag that day? He had left it to follow his children into the water, but he had glanced back—hundreds of times—to be sure he could see it sitting there still. They had eaten lunch at a Mexican cafe on the resort. The bag had been in an empty space on the booth-bench just next to him. Coffee. They’d gotten coffee from the tiny coffee bar across from the elevators.
The man realized his children were talking to him, that his wife studied his face with concern. He had no room for other thoughts. The bag—the camera, the passports, the money, the travel documents, even the room keys—had disappeared. He tried not to look alarmed. He tried, for his family’s sake, not to panic.
“I need to go look for something,” he said to his wife. “I’ve lost…something.”
She looked at the sand, the rectangular drawing of the bag that he’d disrupted with his fingers. She gasped. “Really? But…where?”
The children lifted their eyes from the sand and the moat they were digging. “What did you lose, Daddy?” One of his sons asked with mild curiosity, certainly not worry.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the man said, pushing himself off the lounge chair, slipping on his flip flops. He covered his concern well, but anxiety had already begun whipping up a frantic storm. What would they do without their passports? They were supposed to go home tomorrow morning. And the money—three hundred dollars in cash for incidentals, his credit card, his license…and…the camera, those lenses…hundreds of dollars lost. Where could he have left it all?
He.never.left.the.bag.
Where could it be?
He felt his wife’s eyes following him as he started down the beach and away from them. He would start at the coffee bar and work his way back to every place they had been that day.
The barista said that she had not seen the bag, did not really even remember him with it. Maybe I left it in the room, he thought ridiculously, in spite of the impression in the sand, despite the memory of the way that strap had felt on his shoulder that morning in the elevator.
He asked at the desk. No one had turned in a lost bag. Another key? No problem. But there would be a charge for it on his bill in the morning.
When he reached their room, he noticed that housekeeping had made the bed. They had left fresh towels, folded to look like swans gliding across the pressed comforter. He lifted the bed spread, peering into the darkness beneath the bed. No bag. He looked in the bathroom. No bag. The suitcases. Nothing. He even checked the safe. He pulled all of their clothing out of the drawers, even though he could not imagine a single reason an entire camera bag would be hidden beneath a few pair of shorts and a few t-shirts.
His heart raced. This isn’t good. This isn’t good! He thought, turning around the room with a jerk. The bag wasn’t in this room.
He went back to the desk and asked where he might find the ladies from housekeeping who had been in the room. “Their shift hasn’t finished, sir,” the desk clerk said. “Is there a problem? I could ring the manager.”
“Yes. Ring the manager.” He’d said it a little too abruptly. “There’s no problem. Well, not with housekeeping. I’ve lost something valuable.”
The manager assured him that the staff would do everything they could to help him locate the bag. “I will call you the moment we come up with something,” he told the man. “Don’t worry.”
But the man couldn’t help but worry. Everything was gone…lost…missing. “What if someone from housekeeping took it?” He blurted this, knowing that the idea was absurd, knowing he’d had the bag that morning on the beach. He could feel it beneath his fingers, the pull of the zipper. He felt the weight of the camera in his palm, remembered snapping pictures of his daughter in the turtle sanctuary, holding baby turtles in her small hands.
The manager looked at him briefly before speaking again. “Sir, I have complete confidence in my staff,” he began, but the man lifted a hand, stopping the words.
“I’m sorry. I think I will just go look in the cafe, where we ate our lunch.”
He left the manager standing at the desk, picking up his pace until he reached the big, carved wooden door that led to the Mexican cafe. The interior was cool, dark. Silverware clinked as they set tables for dinner.
“Sorry, sir, we’re closed till—” someone began, but the man interrupted. “Have you seen a black bag? A camera bag?”
“No, sir, I’m sorry. And we clean the restaurant after each serving. We take all lost items to the front desk.”
The man’s flip flops made clacking noises against the brick walk outside the cafe. He ran a hand through his hair. Where? He felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. For two more hours—three—he wandered the resort looking, asking. He began to look in ridiculous places—behind rocks, in the manicured bushes, underneath the stacks of towels by the pool. Nothing. No bag. He could think of nothing else. He felt as if the vacation itself had been stolen from him.
He went back to his family on the beach. His wife raised her eyebrows in inquiry and he shook his head, rubbing his forehead. He knew that bubbling, frantic worry had begun to show up on his face, in his rumpled hair.
His son wanted to go eat, said he was hungry, but the man wanted nothing except to find the lost bag and all their important things. He wanted no food, could not enjoy the white sand or the turquoise water, could not imagine forgetting his quest to find the bag. He ate quickly, and the food tasted like cardboard. He didn’t hear the things his children spoke over their meal, didn’t notice the sunset, even though the light tinted his wife’s cheeks.
He settled the family in the room, and then walked the beach in the dark. Ten times, he went back to the cabana and stared at the sand. He considered digging. Where? Where could it be? He’d spent the day reciting those words, pleading with them, trying hard to remember. He could not.
The bag was lost.
He might as well start moving on, try to figure out what they would do without passports or money. Whom should he call?
Unsure of the time, he wandered back to the room. Without the vouchers for the airport shuttle, he couldn’t even remember what time they were supposed to meet their transport.
Inside the room, his wife and kids were crowded on the bed watching TV. His wife had been pretending to be interested in some Spanish version of Indiana Jones. He knew that look on her face. But in her thoughts she’d been with him, searching. She looked up, hopefully, but instantly read the shadow on his face.
No bag. Everything lost.
Then a knock at the door, a man in the hall, holding the bag in his hand.
The story told did not make sense, but the man found everything inside—camera; lenses–safely stowed; passports, money, vouchers—all zipped away in the places he’d left them. So, the story didn’t matter. What was lost had been found. The man reached into his pocket for what he had believed to be his last $50 in cash and pressed it into the palm of the man in the hall, the man who’d returned the bag. The traveler smiled, touching the finder’s shoulder firmly in thanks. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Turning back into the room, he embraced his kids, his wife. He called room service and ordered dessert, ice cream sundaes in tall glasses for the kids. He lifted the camera out of the case and took pictures of them all huddled on the bed in their pajamas. He felt giddy. At last, he could relax. He could enjoy these last hours beside the sea. He could stand on the balcony and listen to the waves crash, in peace. He could–He would–celebrate,
for what was lost had been found.
Likewise, suppose a girl—a girl named Zoe—lost a library book.
She came to me and casually mentioned it. “Um, Mom? I can’t find the wolf book.”
“The wolf book?” I said this while pressing my fingers into Riley’s homework paper, trying to decide if I had correctly remembered the difference between situational equations and solution equations. My thinking worked with the language, but people sometimes use language unfairly.
“Yes. I can’t find it. It was there, and now it’s gone.”
I looked up. “What wolf book?”
“The one I checked out from the library.”
“The library at school?”
“Yes. It was there, but now it’s gone.”
“You should check your book shelf,” I said, dismissing it. And then, as she nodded, turning to walk away, I called after her. “And check your purses. Sometimes you leave books in your purses. And check Adam’s room.”
“Adam probably took it to his room,” she called back.
Days later, I’m making breakfast, and she says, “Mom? I really should look for that wolf book. I mean, maybe I should even pray that God will help me find it. It was right there, and then it was just gone. I mean, I need to tell the librarian that I will look for it.”
“Why did you check out a wolf book?” I cannot imagine her enjoying such a book.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I liked the pictures. And I thought it would be interesting to read, but…it wasn’t. I thought maybe I could read it for my reading list.”
“Well, have you looked in your room?”
“A little bit. And it’s not in my purses.”
“Did you look in all of them?”
“Well, not all of them. But I looked in most of them. And I looked in Adam’s room, but it’s not there. It’s fine. I will tell the librarian that I am still looking for it.”
I nodded, dismissing it again. Zoe seemed to be in no hurry, so clearly the librarian also felt no hurry.
But the truth, and I know this now, is that Zoe considers the book to be fairly insignificant. It is not an interesting book. She gets along just fine without it, and all of the adults in her life seem unconcerned, so why should she work up a sweat over it? In the back of my mind, I note that the library will charge me a thousand dollars to replace the lost book, even though I could buy one myself for fifteen dollars on Amazon.com.
I find her in the bathroom, putting butterfly barrettes in her hair. “Zoe, you really need to look for that book,” I tell her, lacing my tone with significance.
“Okay. I will,” she says, still looking at herself in the mirror. “I do need to. I mean, it was there, and then it just…it just…wasn’t. I really don’t know what happened to it.” She says this again, casually, lifting her hands.
And the question, the one God keeps asking me, the one perhaps He’s also asking you, is this one:
Which is the kingdom to you?
A camera bag, full of your passport, your money, the valuable record of all your memories of a trip in a foreign land?
Or, a library book about wolves, one that hardly impacts your life; one you’re too preoccupied, really, to worry over; a detail lost somewhere in all your settled comfort?
Because Christ said that both those lost to God and the God to whom they are lost, the ones who truly understand the wealth of the kingdom life, will search, frantic, tearing everything apart, thinking of nothing else. He said the ninety-nine would be left in the field; the widow’s house turned upside-down; that the Father would wait, eyes on the road, looking for the missing son, ready to run to him (Luke 15). He—the one who died to see it come—said that the kingdom is worth all our frantic fear, when suddenly,
it was there—we kept it right beside us, our eyes not leaving the prize—-and then,
it was gone,
only the impression of its significance left behind.
And in the moment when we realize that we’ve grown distracted and comfortable here, the question is,
How urgently do we seek to restore the kingdom to its place of priority?
