|
Return to
Main Page
Return to
Shopping Mini-Mall
Current Sunday
Journal Menu
Archives menu
|
|
UNSTUFFING
7-4-10
Possessions possess us. We don’t dare think of it because it is so
painfully true and all of us are possessed to some extent.
We
fill our closets and attics and basements and then go rent places to put
our “stuff.” I once rented such a place and was paying $45 a month for
it. One day I went to get something there and a sane thought attacked me
in the form of a simple question: “What do you have here that is worth
$45 a month?”
I looked around and maybe I had enough stuff to
justify one month’s rent but certainly not two or more months. I cleared
out my storage cubicle that day. When I got home I threw away about half
of it and gave away some of it and kept about 500 LPs of my first
recording. Weeks later termites raided my garage where the LPs were
stored and ate the covers off of them!
You see, stuff has to be
constantly watched and tended or we will lose it in one way or another.
It reminded me of Jesus’ saying, “Lay up treasures where moth does not
corrupt and thieves do not steal.”
I have been a magnet for paper
all my life. I once said, “I don’t worry about communism taking over but
I do worry about waking up one morning with 50 feet of paper covering
everything in sight.”
It happened so slowly. Subscribing to more
magazines than one can read and digest and sticking them up
thinking you will read them someday. Keeping catalogs you think you may
someday order an item from. Printing out “cute” little stories from the
Internet, ad nauseum , ad infinitum.
If we only kept one out of
ten of the things we initially think we may need “someday” we would
still have stacks of paper all over the house and boxes full.
I
visited a friend a while back who showed me his “collection.” He had
barns full of dolls and bottles and worthless crap and was
building more sheds. If all of it disappeared overnight, he would be no
poorer. His quality of life would be better because he would not be
hovering over truckloads of useless stuff. He could go for more walks,
play his guitar more often and visit his children.
When
asked what I collected years ago, I would say “records and books.” I no
longer collect them. I still buy a few but I try to give away more than
I buy. About the only books I keep are reference books I often go to for
information and classics I love to re-read. Now I get as much pleasure
in passing on a book I love to someone I love than I do on dusting it.
We often speak of “demon possession” and maybe there is such a thing
but “stuff possession” is more common. I’ve bought enough books to tell
me how to “unstuff” my life that they have become nothing but a category
of my stuff collection. I am reluctant to give them away to friends
because they didn’t work for me.
Maybe once a year on a real cold
day, we should have a big community stuff burning and make music while
it goes up in smoke.
|
