from Found Magazine

FOUND RELIGION

Editor's Note: Let's say that, while walking to your car in a parking lot, you see on the pavement a note meant for someone else. What do you do? Leave it? How boring. Take it and show it to some friends? Better. But your best option is to send it to Found [www.foundmagazine.com], where the crew may publish it in their magazine, one of their books, or their website (or some combination).

Any given item that people around the US, and sometimes the rest of the world, send to Found was often meant to be seen only by the person who wrote it. Sometimes it was meant for one other person. As such, these notes, lists, snapshots, and other ephemera give us a tiny but unfiltered look into the life and mind of a stranger.

Want to know what religion really means to people, the roles it plays in their lives? Forget the televangelists and their multibillion-dollar media empires. Ignore the theologians and their debates about angels on pinheads. Look on the ground, under your windshield wiper, and between the pages of old books and magazines....

055

YOU ARE LOST

FOUND by Dennis Brown in Portland, Oregon

I found this note under a windshield wiper after coming out of a store. I have two plastic signs on the back of my car, a “Darwin” fish and an “Evolve” fish.

GOD HIT LIST

FOUND by Erin Shea in Los Angeles, California

Finding this piece of paper overturned INSIDE of my car (window was open) as I walked out of the gym this morning, I thought, it being my birthday, and seeing as how none of the other cars in the lot had papers stuck to their windshields, it was maybe a nice birthday wish from someone. Either that, or someone had hit me and was leaving a note. Turning it over, I did in fact see the word ‘hit,’ but the rest blew me away. It baffles me that people are still able to accept these beliefs as truth and virtue, and more than ever makes me wish that the liberal community can find a spiritual stronghold for people to have faith in in order to erase these pessimistic and corrupt views. Happy Birthday to me!

FOUND by Matt Durand in Northampton, Massachusetts

A year or two ago, while using the ATM, I found this beat-up-looking note over by the deposit envelopes, written on thick paper in a mixture of marker, pencil, pen, and whiteout. It seems like the kind of thing a person might carry around as a sort of inspirational message to him/herself, but if so it's a pretty bleak message, don't you think?

GOD IS A FRAUD

FOUND by Andrew Oberweger

On January 13 I got off the Highway 5 northbound at the Jamboree exit on my way to work. I was maybe the 3rd car in line at the light. I looked towards the curb and saw this note fluttering in the weeds. The type is so large and bold I could clearly read it from where I was sitting. I threw the car in park, jumped out and grabbed this... I call it “Someone Needs a Hug”. Enjoy!

BELIEVE IN GOD OR…

FOUND by Nyck in the Northern Bible Belt

My 5 year old daughter brought this to me and asked me to read it to her. The neighbor girl had given it to her on their bus ride home from school. We're the only agnostics in our county, it would seem....

MIXED MESSAGES

FOUND by Curtis Rice

I found this note on my way to work.

MAN OF MY DREAMS

FOUND by Holy Smith in Oklahoma

I found several pages of this letter written to the Lord. They were floating in the water and I fished them out using a piece of long bamboo from a bridge. After I got them home I felt guilty because they were obviously put in the water as some sort of spiritual ritual. I keep them in my laundry room. I keep wondering if she found “the man of her dreams” or if by fishing them out of the water, I eliminated any hope of her ever finding him. The pages were signed and I fantasize about looking up her phone number and calling her.

CHRISTMAS: A TIME FOR REMEMBERING

FOUND by Andrew Berget in Minneapolis, Minnesota

A friend found this inside an old magazine my girlfriend got at work.

FOUND by Lisa Agostoni in Atlanta, Georgia

A friend of mine flies a Paramotor, and one day during an outing in north Georgia where he was flying, a balloon floated into the air with a note tied to the end of the string. My friend went over and grabbed the balloon and rescued the note.

FOUND by Tim Mancusi in Santa Rosa, California

One evening in early November of 2005 my girlfriend, Audrey and I went for a walk near my condo and saw this piece of paper near the corner of W Steele Lane and McBride Lane. We were intrigued by the penmanship so picked it up. I have read it many times but still can't decide which side of the paper the writer started on. I think the page starting with “J. Crust” is page 2. God only knows.

FOUND by Andrea Leonard in Gilmer, Texas

Found this on the ground when I was leaving a weekend camp for kids. I thought it was great that this little guy: a) thought to pray for his brother, b) that he thought to write it down, and c) monsters are still the scariest thing in his world... I’m not a hardcore believer of any kind, but this is pretty adorable. I stuck it in my journal.