The Lost Pocket Knife

When retirement said it was time to leave the pulpit, I was blessed by coming to the farm.  Coming to the farm required a new and different set of tools.  Pulpit work required a Bible, a computer, commentaries, books, a desk, a calendar, and an assortment of such things.  And while I still have those things, they are, except for the Bible, mostly retired, too.  The new and different set of tools are things like a tractor, chainsaw, post hole diggers, other hand tools, and a pocket knife. 

 

As one who had never carried a pocket knife, I have been surprised at how much it is used.  Few days pass by that it is not pulled out of my pocket and used for one task or another.  I have used it so much over the past ten years, I have gotten attached to it.  I realized this the other day when it came up missing.  I spent a good bit of times retracing my steps hoping to find it, but it remained hidden from sight.  I finally resigned myself to it becoming one of those things someone in the future would find in the dirt and wonder to whom it belonged in the past. 

One of the church secretaries from the past always prayed over lost things.  Others say that we should let lost things come to us.  I don't know about those things.  I just got another pocket knife that had been kept on the shelf.  It is strange that we do get attached to stuff.  We often think we cannot get along without our stuff.  When the day of retirement came, I left a lot of stuff behind which I thought was necessary to live.  Surprisingly enough, I am still alive.  Stuff is nice, but building our lives around it is foolish.  Sometime after I said this to myself, my lost pocket knife showed up on top of the mantle over the wood stuff.  Go figure.