The Tyranny of Things

No one has ever catagorized me as a sentimental person. I don't tend to hang onto stuff because of the feeling it gives me. When my dried roses become too dusty, I pitch them. If my favorite piece of pottery smashes, I don't glue it; I throw it away. Of course, there are exceptions to this, and I save special things the children make, scrapbook their pictures, and journal the milestones in life. I have a very special mug that Gabriel gave me during our courtship. When the handle broke off, I saved the mug and use it to store chapsticks. I am not totally devoid of the feminine impulse to cherish stuff!

But here is what I really do. I save things. I think maybe I will need it someday, so I squirrel it away. And I like to feel frugal and repurpose that old pair of jeans, those baby food jars, or that magazine with nice pictures. The necessity of making space for a sixth person in our small house helped me see just how much of a pack rat I can be. I have been rearranging furniture, going through closets, spring cleaning and finding stuff that I haven't used in ages. A bottle of lotion that I bought before we got married, over seven years ago. I never used it because I hated it, but I have faithfully stored it! Old worn clothing that I thought would make good rags in a puppy box, or something like that. Too many books that we never read, picked up at second hand stores, with titles like "How Is My First Grader Doing in School?"

It has been revealing and amusing for me to go through the house and purge. My tendency to save stuff has nothing to do with a past childhood of want or neglect, let me hasten to say! I think it is genetic, like my Grandpa who saved glass insulin empties since about 1982, according to the labels on the bottles. And my Dad who can't chuck an old National Geographic into the trash can. And my Grandma, who washes her plastic wrap. And my Great Grandma who went out after Halloween and rolled up the toilet paper that the rowdy kids had used to decorate her yard. It must be hard wired into me.

But I believe that this can also be what Tozer called "the tyranny of things". When God made the world, with all of its beauty and blessings for us to enjoy, He simply called them "things". They were meant to be useful, to enhance our lives, but never to occupy the huge space that they so often do. We are created to enshrine God in our hearts, and keep His gifts to us outside, where they belong.

I have been helped in culling through our stuff, to remember that if something is merely cluttering up our lives, it is holding us in a sort of tyranny that we do well to break.

...Does anyone out there want a bunch of cassette tapes of long ago messages? Speak up within the week!