Having Stuff

Preparing to move always has a way of getting me to consider the nature of the physical portion of my life i.e., the stuff that I have in it.  We pack everything up and it gets taken to the new location, where it either gets unpacked or perhaps simply left in its container until the next time we move, at which point we pry open the box, realize that it matches what is on the outside, and then seal it up to move on to the next place.

And as Charles Swindoll has noted, we seem to gain stuff as we move through life.  We start with what will fit in a car, then seem to move up to a truck, then a small U-Haul, then a larger U-Haul, until finally we need a semi-to take our stuff.

This thought process has taken a poignant ring to it as, two nights ago, Fear Beag's grandparents home burned to the ground.  It was totally destroyed.  At least 6 decades of stuff - of memories and life - is now ashes.

It gave me pause yesterday as he let me know and I sorted through the fact.  What would happen if our home burned tomorrow?  Everything we spent years acquiring and carting back and forth, including halfway across the country, would simply be gone.  Certainly we have homeowner's insurance and so would get our money, but that hardly replaces the real value - measured by comfort and sentiment - that such things have come to acquire.

The odd thing - odd to me at least - is that I like to pretend that I eschew the concept of being a person about stuff - yet here I am, swimming in it.  There are passing moments that I consider simply becoming a nomad - the times that I have had very little with me, as when I first moved to New Home or even when I attended seminar this month - have been some of the most clear and thoughtful times of my life.  Why?  With little stuff the mind is free to spend its time on other things.  As Randy Alcorn says, It's like a balloon:  once releases from being tied down, it's free to soar.

Will I ever become the yurt-dwelling nomad of my occasional flights of fancy?  I doubt it - I am too much of a book lover to ever really become a man of truly few possessions.  But hopefully I can at least become more mindful both of what I think I need and the fact that this stuff is ultimately not going to be here forever.  Yes, we should care for that which we have been given, but let us never confuse that care with the concept that it will be with us forever.  Let us seek to define ourselves by the character of our lives and not the collection of our things.