Last week I was taking an early morning walk to the coffee shop in our neighborhood. There was nothing particularly unusual or special about the morning. It was, instead, one more of the glorious summer days with which we’ve been blessed for the last several weeks. Cool, sunny, bright blue sky. Near to perfection…..whatever perfection means.

Coming out of the coffee shop, my morning jolt in my hand, I began making my way back toward home and the beginning of a work day that would hold some things for which I had planned and others that would unfold with the surprise that might change everything. It happens. We all know its true.I was keeping my eyes to the ground for some reason and that’s how I noticed it. Nestled in the edge of the sidewalk and just balancing on the blades of green grass was one, single puzzle piece. I knelt down and picked it up. Its backside was the gray paper of nearly all puzzle pieces. The other side was rubbed clean of color and whatever hint it held to its place in a larger picture. I tucked this little morning gift into my pocket knowing that I wanted to spend more time with it, with the metaphor it created for me on a glorious summer morning in August.

I love puzzles. I like the act of sitting at a table, moving tiny pieces around until a picture makes itself known. This love of this activity is not shared with those in my family though our Seattle Son was quite the puzzle-maker when he was little. It was something we shared often in total silence with steaming cups of hot chocolate nearby in winter and cool drinks in summer. It is a precious memory for me. And perhaps because I love puzzles, I also very much dislike when, after much effort and time, I come to the end and a piece is missing. The picture cannot be completed!

But such is life. How rare it is to ever have all the pieces of a vision or a solution right at our fingertips, one we can see without too much finagling. I think of the many people I know right now who are struggling with the missing pieces that are causing them strife, confusion, even anger. The picture they are trying to create with the stuff of their daily living seems all a jumble. And just when they think they have it all put together, every thing lined up just so….bam!….a critical piece is missing.

Sometimes, perhaps most times, we don’t really even have an image of what the missing piece might be. We wrack our brains and twist ourselves into all manner of contortions trying as hard as we can to find that last, little hint at what will solve a problem or mend a heartache or bring some balance where there once was such tranquility. Or other times we know for sure what is missing if we could just lay our hands on it, just reach into the couch cushions and pull it out from where it has been hiding.

Over the last days I have been in more than one conversation with someone about the current state of the world. It seems that the pieces to the whole picture of countries and the people who call them home have been scattered about and are aching to be brought back together, to find the complete picture once more. People’s questions outweigh their answers and it seems as if there are more than a couple of missing pieces to the puzzle….pieces that might stop violence, end wars, bring peace, help bring people back safely to their homes.

That puzzle piece I found? I tucked it so carefully into my stack of books and papers that I took to the office the day of its finding. I had so fully planned to photograph it, to reflect on it, to allow its quirky message to shape something in me. And what did I do? I lost it. I have now searched the floor of my office and cleaned out my book bag looking for a puzzle piece that was lost, then found and now lost again. While my floor and bag are much tidier, the puzzle piece is still missing. I am sure there is something to be gleaned in all this but right now it simply seems like irony to me.

And so for all the places in the world where pieces are missing, I offer prayers of hope and promise. For all the people who need just that one last piece to make it all fit together in the way they hoped, prayers of patience. And for all the missing pieces lingering in unfound places, prayers of peace……and maybe even a sense of humor.