It's a funny thing with losing. Sometimes you lose something very valuable - poof, it's gone! Not there any more. Vanished. Disappeared. Lost. And yet it's not all gone. It's as if something invisible has remained and keeps living its intangible life in the middle of all this lost-ness.

I've lost a great deal this week.

One of these things that has disappeared is my computer. Last Sabbath we were careless about locking the conference office door, people had to come and go and so we didn't check the door when we left for a couple of hours in the afternoon. When we came back for the evening service, the office door was open and my laptop was gone from my desk. I'm not sad about the computer itself, it belonged to the conference anyway. But I hadn't backed up my documents and materials which means that I have lost a huge amount of work. I get really sad when I think about the Sabbath School manual which I was in the process of translating, or my sermons, or the Revelation seminar, or all my Greek materials. Oh bloody thing, I lost so much. Not to talk about my photos and some important private letters of which I kept manuscripts saved...

But I think about my most precious intellectual property - my sermons. Did I really lose them? Yes, of course, the manuscripts are gone and there is no way I could get them back. But I've preached them all! I've spoken to people and shared my experience and thoughts and the Word, I've seen people respond, heavens, I've seen them cry in the pews! So they can't be totally lost, these sermons, can they? I don't know. Or the photos - they might not be in my possession any more, but the experiences and people and the nature - they did happen. They had an impression on me. They changed me. So they can't be really lost, can they? Can they?

It's the same with people, it turns out. Sometimes you lose someone important - I just have - but they keep living a hidden life in your heart, even after they're gone. So are they really gone then?