Many, many years ago--I think it was the summer after my mission when I returned to Germany to visit friends for the first time as a non-missionary, my good friend Lutz Wagner gave me his father's iron cross from the first world war. (I am pretty sure it was his father and not his grandfather--I believe he was already quite old when Lutz was born).

I was very honored by the gift. With Germans, the idea of friendship is deeper than it is most of the time with Americans, it is something closer to family than anything else. At least with the Wagners, with whom I lived for several months, I know the relationship goes beyond simple friendship. So you can imagine how I felt when I looked one day (for a class) and could not find the iron cross anywhere. To make matters worse, this summer Lutz mentioned that he had had a medal from his father and didn't know where it was anymore. I had to admit to him that he had given it to me years ago, but that I couldn't find it anymore.

Of course there is a happy end to the story. A couple of weeks ago my parents threatened to throw out all my stuff that was still at their house (it's less than 20 years since I lived there) if I didn't go through the boxes and decide what I wanted to keep. Guess what I found? I feel a little like the woman in the parable that cleaned her whole house and found the money she had lost.

Objects are really just things that should not be important to us at all, but when they become symbols then that changes them altogether. I can't help but think about the changing meaning behind this one. When it was given, it was a symbol of one man's service to his country--a country that, by the time the cross was awarded, did not even exist anymore. For years during the socialist era, it must have sat in a drawer, nearly forgotten as it would have represented a time of capitalist empiricism to some had it been displayed too openly. It was also a symbol of war and militarism and so somewhat ambivalent in the best of times. To Lutz, I would think that it would serve as a memory of his father. I should probably give it back to him.

To me, however, it is a reminder that the family I am a part of is bigger than that I was born to, or that have been born to me, that there are people that I hope to enjoy the eternities with. That, I think, is what it means to have a Pearl of Great Price.