My favorite time of day is the 30-45 minutes before the sun rises and the first moments afterwards. Especially on clear mornings. That was the case again recently on a flight. I’d gone out to Texas and then Arkansas to minister to some fellow soldiers. On the flight back into Dallas, Texas we were still over Arkansas below. The sky was clear, the sun was emerging, and all seemed irenic. Though the flight was full, folks were getting along and mostly patient with one another. (If you fly often, you will discover such characteristics are not always prevalent.)

Anyway, we landed in Texas safely and I had about an hour before my connecting flight to Atlanta. I patronized a bagel shop for a bottle of water and a breakfast bagel, walked to my gate, and sought a chair to sit down in and eat while waiting for my flight. From the looks of it, this flight to Atlanta was going to be full, too. It is July, after all, and I suppose many folks are vacationing.

When I wathced the people, it was clear who’d been to the beaches or other sunny destinations. The girls and women had on their loose-fitting clothes and their skin was brown with summer. And the boys and men often wore t-shirts and shorts, often with a cap of some sort, with place names like Cancun, Miami, or Cabo Wabo embroidered thereupon.

My eyes perused the terminal for a seat, and I finally spotted two empty ones. I pulled off my backpack and put my backpack down in one seat and I sat in the one next to it. I unwrapped the foil and began to munch on the breakfast bagel and drink the bottle of water. As I finished the breakfast sandwich, I rose from my seat and walked over to the trash bin to discard the foil wrapper and put the now-empty water bottle in the recycle bin for plastics. But as I returned to my seat, something caught my eye. Sticking out from under my backpack was a wad of cash. I simply had not seen it when I took my pack off and placed it in the seat. When I spotted the wad of cash now, I picked it up and asked the people around me, “Excuse me, do you know who this belongs to?” but each person denied knowing who it belonged to.

I put the wad of cash back on the seat, but kept looking around the terminal. Surely, someone will come back looking for this, I thought. Plus, there are cameras everywhere in airports. Surely, it should be discoverable how someone dropped this, forgot it, or exactly what had happened.

But I kept looking around. As people came and went, several times I saw their eyes fall upon the wad of cash, but I just left it there, hoping the rightful owner would return.

Another 40 minutes passed, and still no one appeared for the wad of cash. Finally, the girl’s voice came on the intercom, announcing it was time for my group to board the flight to Atlanta. I picked up my backpack and slung it over my shoulders and boarded.

As I flew back, and the sun rose, I read my book. But my thoughts kept returning to that wad of cash. I wish I knew that righteousness would prevail, that the rightful owner returned, that the good would come out on top. But I just don’t know.