Letting Go

 

Luke 12:15

He told the people, "Be careful to guard yourselves from every kind of greed. Life is not about having a lot of material possessions."

Call me the anti-hoarder...

In the last couple of months, I have been throwing stuff away in increments. VCR movies, Belgian beer bottles, doctoral program research (particularly gratifying), files, garden fencing, general crap, and about 600 books (donated). Next up are old photo albums. It has been so very freeing and will make the move in a little over a month much more stealth. I can't remember the last time I looked at the pictures. Waste Management gave out big trash cans with SUV-like wheels the other month. I have been packing it to the brim. I almost lost control of the can a couple of weeks ago rolling it down my steep driveway. I almost got run over...now that would have been ironic. 

Particularly interesting is this type hoarding:

"Book hoarding:  Bibliomania is a disorder involving the hoarding of books to the point where social relations or health are damaged. The accumulation of books beyond possible capacity of use or enjoyment are frequent symptoms of bibliomania." Been there but no more...

Now I hide my Bibliomania on my Kindle...no more shelves and shelves of books on two-by-fours and cinderblocks in the basement. Not a whole lot different from when porn went from brown-paper wrapped magazines to the web. I saw a guy come out of a porn shop the other Sunday down in Lancaster City...I thought to myself, doesn't he have a computer? Not that I think surfing for porn on the web is not wicked. It is. It was more of a practical question.   

I acutely recall cleaning out my grandmother's condo when she moved in with my aunt. Stuff going back to the 1950's. Took my brother and I a couple of days. Particularly fun was discovering the termite infestation. Our heirs often wind up tossing what we held onto. Only precious things should survive the waves of time. Everything else goes out into the great sea of anonymity. I want to live light. It is good to move every decade or so because we have to face the decision if something is really worth packing, unpacking, and sitting in the basement. I am not very sentimental. The past is past. What is coming should be our focus. Like eternity, with or without God.

Remembrance is good but it should not be an anchor, keeping us docked on the shores of yesterday. New adventures await. If a memory provides comfort today, hold onto it. If an object has value because it reflects a particularly important moment, keep it. Otherwise, toss it now. You will save your friends and family the work after you pass.
         

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