I got curious of the lost and found in our office this last week. I was preparing for a talk at AISD and was thinking about what we have lost over the last few years and what we need to find to get moving again in the world.
I took the items out of the box one by one and looked at them. I grouped them by categories and then took photographs of them—bracelets, rings, necklaces, keys, watches, pendants, pins. and more. Most of the items look like they are moderately valuable, but a few appear that they might be real treasures. I zeroed in on the knife. Because I’m an Eagle Scout I was drawn to it. It is pretty, has a beautiful eagle on it, a copy of the eagle patch and on the back side a portrait of Baden Powell (the founder of the Scouting movement), an image of a hiking scout, the BSA logo, and an American Flag. I remember when I became an Eagle Scout. My former retired Scout Master came to my reception - it meant a lot to me. I imagine that knife is a treasure to someone. It might be that some of these others things might have real importance to individuals around us. We should try to reunite them to the owners.
According to the Scouting movement, only 4% of scouts have become Eagle Scouts. It’s a small number. The knife looks worn. We have had it a couple of years. The average age of an Eagle Scout is 17, which leads me to believe that it was the property of man over the age of 20. According to Amazon, this kind of knife was first available in 2010, but is no longer available. So if it was bought for someone who was newly an Eagle Scout, they are between 20-30. It was lost at the North Pole event, which does make the net broader, but still in our area. It’s possible that we could help find the owner of this knife and get it back to them.
The strategy would be to ask people to help us. Each of you has a network. If you passed along this blog post to others with the simple question, “Do you know an Eagle Scout?” and then ask them to send it to any Eagle Scout they know, maybe we could get it to the right person. It should not take long for a blanket of questions to be passed around Athens and the surrounding communities. While passing this around, others might see the picture and recognize something they lost. After I talked about our lost and found on Monday, two people mentioned things they had lost and wondered if they were in our cache of items. I was sad that neither was there, but there is hope for others.
The church is on a mission to reconnect the lost with the one who rejoices in the found. ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep. . . .Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin . . . Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (Luke 15).