Lost Keys

Do you hate losing things? I do. Today I lost my house keys. I've tried every technique:

• retracing my steps
• accusing my husband of pocketing them
• looking in the places where they should be
• looking again where they should be
• looking in unlikely places - the fridge, the washing machine, in the bed, the laundry basket etc.
• looking again in unlikely place
• relaxing with a cup of tea hoping for inspiration
• having another cup of tea
• forgetting about them and working on a sermon
• forgetting about them and blowing paint across paper with a straw (watercolour technique)
• praying to find them (yes - my last resort in this case!)
• contacting some other people
• giving up and writing this post instead

Professor Solomon boasts of having an 'amazing method' for finding lost objects, based on his 'Twelve Principles':

1. Don't look for it.
2. It's not lost - you are.
3. Remember the 3 C's
4. It's where it's supposed to be.
5. Domestic Drift.
6. You're looking Right at it.
7. The camouflage effect.
8. Think back.
9. Look Once, Look Well
10. The Eureka Zone
11. Tail thyself
12. It wasn't you

Well, I've worked through all these. I still haven't found my house keys. Professor Solomon then suggests a 13th Principle which involves calling off the search, relaxing and accepting the object is lost. I wish I could do that easily. In Professor Solomon's 'Final Word' I read: 

"Remember, lost objects can be found.They want to be found.And they will be found—by SYSTEMATIC SEARCHERS.Searchers for whom finding things is not a chore, but a challenge.Searchers who—instead of ransacking their own house—sit down, don their thinking cap, take a sip of tea, half-close their eyes, and murmur:“All right, the game’s afoot!”Searchers who conscientiously apply the Twelve Principles.Searchers like yourself."

I can't agree that my house keys "want to be found" - they are not sentient beings.

Jesus told a story of a woman searching for a lost coin, sweeping every inch of the house until she found it.

I thought of that while looking for my keys. It's one of 3 'lost' stories found in Luke's gospel chapter 15.  The other two are the lost sheep and the lost son. All show something of God's love for 'lost' people and the activity of Jesus in searching out the lost, socialising with people thought disreputable by the religious leaders, not giving up on them.

(Update: My keys did get found eventually but not before I had got them all replaced!)

Image Credit for Keys: Flickr, CC License

Image Credit for Parable of Lost Coin: Wikimedia commons