by Lisa Lindsley

Created on: December 06, 2007

As I walked up the sidewalk toward my church, I glanced at my watch. The second hand ticked away with one minute until ten o'clock. I was pushing it to get seated before the opening hymn. As I headed on, I made it through the double doors and was moving fast as to not walk in after the start of Mass. There on the floor I spotted something. It was large and decorative, a button, from a women's dress or jacket. I snatched it up; slipped it in my pocket and preceded on thinking I'd try to locate the owner after church.

Safe in my seat, seconds before the singing began I looked around at the people that filled the space. In those few moments I saw many people that I knew well and others I only knew from church. As I began to sing the opening hymn, I wondered, "Whose button was it" "How did it end up on the floor?" Be it large and decorative or simple and plain, the job of a button is to secure or to fasten. Now something was undone. What held "things together" had now fallen away leaving a void.
I closed my mouth, unable to continue with the hymn, as I felt the emotion well up in my throat. I realized that this button reminded me of those around my church that have a void in their life. Those that had lost something very dear to them, such as, a loved one that had passed, the loss from divorce or a broken relationship, a lost job, lost finances and certainly lost health.
I reached into my pocket and rubbed the button thinking more about how life is so much like the peril of this button. What once held something together is now undone. Once all was secure and holding together as was intended, then slowly, the threads that hold all in tact begin to loosen, friction pulling it in opposite directions, weakening perhaps, until the button fell away. I saw the parallels of life to this button. Relationships, health, jobs and life itself is held together by threads. These threads can become loose, unraveling bit by bit, outside forces bumping here and there, then one day the single small thread that keeps things together, slips and there is a fall. These things seem to pop up unexpectedly as the button did for me as I was running late, but actually they were probably "working loose" for some time. As the button lay there alone on the floor, often those with the losses may feel lost and all alone. A dark void has appeared in their life.
I had every intention of finding the rightful owner of the button, but with the revelation of what this button now signified, I changed

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