The Mystery of the Flowers

Every Sunday, flowers decorate our sanctuary for worship. The cost is usually donated by a member, in honor or memory of a loved one.

This past Sunday, the flowers were simply paid for "in honor of God." No name was listed on the official sign-up list. After worship, several people said to me that the flowers should go to Margaret, one of our members who has been in the hospital. Arrangements were made, and I was told that Margaret's daughter would pick them up on Monday.

When she arrived Monday morning, I was at church alone; the secretary had already gone to lunch. Together, we went to get the flowers, but they couldn't be found. We looked in the sanctuary. We looked in the fellowship hall. We looked in the office. I called the secretary, who asked, "Did you look in the sanctuary? Did you look in the fellowship hall?" Perhaps, we thought, someone had already taken the flowers to Margaret.

On Tuesday I went to visit Margaret. I asked if she had received any flowers from the church. She said no. Someone else had brought her flowers, but they had attracted so many ants into her hospital room that they had to be discarded and she had to move to another room. She didn't seem to mind not receiving the flowers from church. "It's the thought that counts," she said with all sincerity.

So it's not a big deal, and yet, curiosity has me wondering: who took the flowers? The suspects are as follows:

• the anonymous person who paid for them "honor of God."
• someone who intended to take them to Margaret, but for some reason never did.
• our new, very-thorough custodian who saw only a counter that needed to be cleaned
• the fabled phantom of Bixby Knolls

Will this mystery ever be solved?