I'm not sure if this post comes because I've just started reading 'The Irresistible Revolution' by Shane Claiborne and feel convicted about the number of possessions cluttering up my life.
Or whether I'm just weary after packing box after box in preparing to move out of my flat.
But I've aware that 'stuff' hasn't lasted. And 'stuff' has not fulfilled the promise that it seemed to have on first sight.
You know what I mean. The item of clothing that you just had to have. The cool item of furniture that would impress all your friends. That DVD. That CD. Those shoes.
At the time, you wonder how life could ever possibly be fulfilled and doubt that you could ever be happy again without those items.
And today, many of those same items are going into a bin bag to find their future entirely dependant on the tastes of customers in a charity shop at a given moment in time.
Turns out that I can live without them after all.
Just wish I'd realised that at the time.
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2 comments:
I find it scary to think how easily real, living, breathing people can share the same fate as 'stuff': how friends you once thought were indispensible, who you built your social world around, become people you give a passing thought to every once in a while, until you can put them in the figarative recycling bin of your life.
Is this human frailty? Or is this a part of life and growing up? Is it true that you will never lose somebody who is truly important to you? Or is it possible that, actually, in the upheaval of life, we end up misplacing somebody who was perhaps more important to us than we realised, and we miss out on some quality love, beneficial to both parties?
Maybe it's a lesson to us all to recognise what is truly valuable, 'cling to what is good', as Paul said. After all, in the words of the prophet Joni Mitchell (who never lies...), 'Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got til it's gone?'
Good point as always DB.
Is that why Facebook is such a phenomenon? It offers a chance for people from days gone by to be kept 'close' even though the relationship may be going through a metamorphis caused by circumstances of life's ever changing tapestry.
Facebook then offers a chance to make contact quickly during those fleeting moments when you mind flits back to them.
It is an illusion, of course, as surely these moments warrant a phone call and more than just a message on the wall.
But if it saves some relationships drifting towards the recycling bin I guess it can't be all bad.
And I have over 30 friends on my page now ;-)
Seriously though, you are right. The challenge for us is to have eyes that can focus on what is good and encourage our hands to cling to it before it disappears.
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