"Is it Secret? Is it Safe?"

"You can touch it, it's quite cool," says Gandalf to Frodo as he drops the Ring into Frodo's hand, still glowing from the fire. You'll notice, however, that Gandalf is using tongs to handle the Ring.
Now, that's trust.

This morning I went foraging for my husband's passport upstairs in his locked office, in the drawer where I was certain to find it. I needed to enter the number into the information requested by Air France for the Pilgrimage flight to Israel. [At least, they want me to think this is needed.] And I wanted to be sure the passport was findable.

Empty drawer. Mild panic. Searching the room, uncomplimentary thoughts circulating in my mind. All will be lost . . . so eventually, having eliminated the impossible, I return to the desk and try adjacent drawers and, voila, passport. By gosh, I am going to keep this passport safe.

However, where I keep my own passport, in my purse [really], is safe only in that it is a place I can remember for certain where it is. I cannot guarantee my purse will not be stolen. Also, who am I to arbitrarily choose what is the safest spot? But my compulsiveness wins. I think my husband and I are equally distractable, but my flakiness is compensated for by my control freak-ness.

This is what happens when we have possession of an item of critical and unique importance: we become obsessively controlling and paranoid in guarding its location. I'm much more worried about forgetting where my passport is than I am about the possibility of theft.