The Beach Ball and I

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked... “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” Luke 8:45-46 (NIV) There's a beach ball stuck in the rafters of the pool. It's been there for the 7 years I've been coming here. It contains air from the lungs of an unknown person, an essence that rests here though they left and likely never consider the fact. I wonder about all the places I've left pieces of me, caught sight of but unknown. It might even sound a bit bizarre, but there have been times that I have recalled gently when my presence never left a place. But I never returned, and sometimes I encounter it with a long-lost friend who has a memory or an item I made. There's a saying or dance I embodied that they kept somehow. There are some people I'd like to ask, "Who was I in that moment of my life when we passed? I hope those fragments, like the air that I breathed into the beach ball, are more than the air I breathed on an unremembered day. And are the reasons people smile and hold an item in their hands meant to conjure back memories like I do on occasion"? Still, there remain small links of the unforgotten that piece me together as someone who existed 7 years ago, like the beach ball still stuck in the rafters of the pool. Indeed, that beach ball filled with the air from the lungs of an unknown person. Every touch given or received; Every breath breathed in or out; That touch or breath creates a connection with another entity. No, it does not compare to the power or virtue of The Christ, but there is value when we release for the good of others.