Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me."
But he said to him, "Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?"
And he said to them, "Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions."
Then he told them a parable: "The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, 'What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?'
Then he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?'
So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God." Luke 12:13-21
The old line goes something like this: No matter how well you do in the Rat Race, in the end you're still a rat.
At last count I have ten guitars in my house. Ten guitars! That's five each for the two residents who play them.
I love music, and its creation is a means of prayer, praise, meditation, reflection and joy for me. Having access to guitars is good for me spiritually and psychologically. There's a Yamaha classical propped up within three feet of me right now, and it feels good just knowing it is there, brimming with wide open possibilities, a boat launch to broad creative currents.
Yes, a guitar is good for me. But ten?!? Definitely excessive. Methinks I have fallen into the "More Is Better" trap. Fueled to consume, consume and consume some more, we are propped up by our desires, and become easy targets for anyone with something to sell. I'm guilty as charged.
I have too much stuff, and just off the top of my head I can name five things for which I am in the market right now, none of which is a kidney dialysis machine or shoes for the children. My true needs are all met. It's my wants that have me strung out.
What I really crave can't be found at Stuff-Mart, Lowes or even Rossi Music. What I really crave is this thing Jesus called rich[ness] toward God. I want a wealth of treasured memories shared between the One and me. I want a currency of complete trust and understanding between us. I desire a house full of golden love and a bank vault of restorative Soul.
The thing is, such richness is already mine. I can't for the life of me figure out where or how I happened to set it down and let it out of my sight again. One moment I'm breathing deep the dew-soaked morning air, the next I'm sinking in swells of pounding, plastic frenzy.
You get caught up in it, too? I return time and time again to the motto/mantra/bumper wisdom: live simply, that others might simply live. Yeah, simple is best. But simple isn't easy.
I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for the special offer
A guaranteed personality
I wasn't born so much as I fell out
Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs
Over which I never could see
I heard the people who lived on the ceiling
Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling
That's how it's been all around me
I'm all tuned in I see all the programmes
I save coupons from packets of tea
I've got my giant hits discotheque album
I empty a bottle I feel a bit free
Kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Making noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely
It's not here, it disappeared.
-- Lost in the Supermarket (Strummer/Jones, from the Clash album London Calling, (c)1979 Sony Music)
After almost a quarter century of accumulation, my family is on its second dumpster of the week. Some of the filler is old carpeting soon to be replaced w/laminate flooring, but most of it is stuff I was unwillingly to let go of because I might need it someday. Obviously, if the need hadn't arisen in almost half the time of my existence, it probably wouldn't. I did rescue one travel mug I actually use on a regular basis that another family member discreetly tossed (or mistakenly so).
ReplyDeleteMuch of the stuff that I wanted to keep but knew I shouldn't was placed on the road with a "free stuff" sign to be carted off into other people's basements to languish for another quarter century.
Corey has 10 guitars in his house. (One of them is still mine, but no problem, bro.) I would argue an assortment of guitars is excusable as long as they produce an assortment of varied sounds or tonal qualities. Most professional guitarists have rooms dedicated to storing their instruments and they have dozens.
I hoard music. No one in my family would dare expel even the oldest, dirtiest, scratched vinyl record from my collection without my permission. Perhaps, when lying on my deathbed, I can attempt to listen to every album, tape and cd I own one last time, thereby extending my life by several more years.
Moving and cleaning tells you, through the strain of the effort, how much extra you own and carry with you. Like Jacob Marley forging his chain of sins against his Brother Man to drag through his afterlife, I sometimes feel the weight of all I own in this life.
Indeed, "One's life does not consist in the abundance of possessions." Rather, it often suffocates in that abundance.
Very thought-provoking, Corey. I don't know if it is in our human genes to be pack-rats, but a lot of us are. We tend to see something that strikes our fancy and we want to acquire it. But, then once we do possess it, we sometimes take it for granted (some people, unfortunately, treat relationships that way, too).
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's a survival instinct? Sort of like the squirrel who hoards his acorns to tide him over in lean times (in his case, wintertime)? Or, the fox who hunts for rodents and buries them here and there, but later forgets where he buried them ;)
I remember, years ago, reading a magazine article/interview about John Lennon. There were several great photographs of him and his home. In the article, he explained how he had eschewed possessions and had become sort of a minimalist in his household. All of the rooms in his house were pretty bare-boned, white walls, white curtains, white furniture, white piano, not much else. All of his rooms were like this. All of them, except one: That one room had collections of countless buttons, memorabilia, guitars on the walls EVERYWHERE. It was a visual cornucopia of kitsch, haha.
I thought at the time (and still do) that, no matter how dedicated a person is to simplifying, organizing, paring down, most of us have that one room (literally or figuratively) where we hold our possessions/memories to give us a feeling of security and familiarity. It's a sort of physical/mental "spill-over," where we have to store stuff (George Carlin did a great routine on "stuff"). I guess that's why folks have garage sales. They finally decide that all that "stuff" is really not beneficial and they may as well make a slight profit off of it all. Now, here comes the analogy:
Each of us has an excess of intangible "stuff." Stuff in our heads, stuff in our hearts...Stuff that we can freely give away, if we can only be moved or motivated to do so. Stuff like time and attention we can devote to our loved ones. So, instead of frittering away our precious, limited time on this Earth, we can give some of it to our parents, our children, our loved ones. Simple moments of time spent conversing, listening, engaging in flights of fancy, playing.
After all, when all is said and done, at the end of one's days, what moments will be remembered and treasured with the most fondness? Memories of time spent watching TV? Shopping (and buying stuff) at the mall? Surfing the Net? No. At that moment, those times will all be forgotten. Instead, the precious moments when we interacted and connected with loved ones will burst to the forefront of our recollections.
I was moving and shaking to donate my now 6-year-old's almost embarrassingly large wooden train set to a kindergarten classroom. And then someone said, "That's a valuable collection. Wouldn't you get a lot more financially if you sold it on Craig's list--or at your upcoming garage sale--than you will from your tax deduction?"
ReplyDeleteI struggled. I prayed. And ultimately couldn't get around this question: Why had a mom returning to teaching kindergarten been the only one who had contacted me when I had sent out our inventory to the entire Rochester area mom's group listerve?
And I'm giving it away, rejuvenated by the pause. Just think of the full collection, still together, in the hands of children who may not yet have had the pleasure of connecting wooden trains; building their very own world of bridges, sheds, and wash downs; and running loads down to the "docks" with engines who are practically their friends.
It really isn't the about the dollars here, is it?