“Sell your possessions
and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear
out, a treasure in heaven that will never fail, where no thief comes near
and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be
also.”
--Luke
12:33-34 NIV
Each day I receive an email listing estate sales
happening in my area. Especially during COVID-19, estate sales have gone high
tech and begun posting pictures of their contents for online-only auctions. For
reasons I am unsure of—maybe because I grew up lower middle-class acquiring
things from other people’s garage sales, I like looking for deals at estate
sales. Yet, I’ve reached a point in life where I have most of the things I need
and the boxes in my basement full of stuff feel more like a burden and less
like something worth holding on to.
Lately as I look at estate sales it feels like
I’m seeing a whole lot of the same stuff. I see furniture, clothing, tchotchkes
and collections of everything from antiques to figurines to auto parts that adult
children of downsizing or deceased parents don’t want. It feels a bit sad to
see the stuff that a generation held on to simply passed on to estate sale
companies. I wonder how much of the leftovers from estate sales end up simply
thrown into a dumpster? Was all this stuff a comfort to the people who left it
behind or was it a burden in the end?
Once one is privileged enough to have one’s
basic needs met, how much more do we need? TV shows like Hoarders show
materialism as a mental health problem where even the most insignificant piece
of trash is imbued with an undeserved significance. In less extreme but perhaps
no less unhealthy cases, the current trends of minimalism and simplicity along
with books like The Life-Changing Art of Tidying Up and The
Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning reveal the deep spiritual hunger
people are feeling who have exhausted finding meaning in their possessions.
We Christians should not be surprised by the
truth that our possessions cannot satisfy our deepest longings. Jesus did say
after all, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide
purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that
will never fail, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your
heart will be also.” (Luke 12:33-34 NIV) I don’t think Jesus
expected every follower to be an ascetic. He asked some to sell everything,
while others provided him and his followers with food, lodging and even a
burial tomb. Yet, I don’t know anyone in the middle class or above who doesn’t
have too much of something.
Thinking about the excess of possessions we
carry through this life is an apt analogy for all the emotional, psychological
and spiritual things we carry with us which are more burden than help. Recently
I discovered a book I’ve added to my reading list: Without Oars:
Casting Off Into a Life of Pilgrimage by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson. I
haven’t read it yet, but it intrigues me, because it is a collection of
reflections by an American Protestant Christian about what he learned on the
ancient pilgrimage routes of Europe.
The author describes his experience travelling
the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) in northern Spain, a famous
pilgrimage route travelled by medieval pilgrims and modern pilgrims and
tourists. He has this interesting observation from his journey:
On the Camino de Santiago, makeshift shrines
along the way are littered with things pilgrims have left behind—an extra pair
of shoes, a sweater, a razorblade, an inflatable pillow, a book, a pair of
pants, a makeup kit. Nearly every pilgrim on the Camino, despite careful
packing, discovers that they are carrying too much.
On this pilgrimage route, pilgrims on a
spiritual journey realized that they could not complete their pilgrimage and make
it to their destination unless they let go of things along the way.
Maybe you’ve had a similar experience on a
hiking or camping trip. Or maybe you’ve realized you packed too much for a
vacation as you lugged a heavy suitcase through an airport. Maybe you didn’t
abandon unneeded items, but you regretted the weight of carrying things you did
not need for your journey.
Similarly, maybe you’ve discovered, as I have on
a regular basis, that what you were carrying inside of your mind, heart and
soul were similarly too burdensome for your pilgrimage through this life. Anne
Lamott said the following in an interview:
We're here to know God, to love and serve God,
and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get
rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don't
have time to carry grudges; you don't have time to cling to the need to be
right.
Christine Valters Paintner describes how
we don’t need to actually walk a medieval pilgrimage route to be on a pilgrimage.
We head out into the unknown all the time when life throws us a curve ball and
we must set out on a spiritual journey to find our purpose and meaning once
more. She writes:
This call to embark on a rigorous journey of
reclaiming ourselves and our relationship to the divine often comes
without our bidding. There are many reasons we might begin an inner
pilgrimage. Perhaps we’ve experienced a great loss: a job, our health, a
dear friend, a sense of identity, financial security, or a marriage. We
know we can’t return to life as usual.
The goal of such a pilgrimage, I suspect, is that at the end of our lives when
we are united with God we will have to leave behind as little spiritual baggage
as possible. The loved ones we leave behind hopefully won’t have to deal with
the consequences of our neuroses, anxieties and suffering but rather they will
cherish our joy, strength and love.
Before my mother died, she worked hard to
dispose of all of her stuff that she knew we wouldn’t want. She would ask us if
we wanted something, and if not, off it went to a thrift store or a trash can.
She remembered having to pay for a dumpster when her own mother died in order
to dispose of so much of my grandmother’s stuff that had mildewed and
deteriorated to the point that it was of no use to anyone. She didn’t want to
leave us the same burden.
I’m less worried about leaving my sons junk to
throw in a dumpster and more concerned I will leave behind for them memories of
their father stressed out, anxious and preoccupied by things that didn’t really
matter much in the scheme of things. Instead of an estate sale company, will
they have to hire a therapist to dispose of what I leave behind for them? How
much better would it be for me to leave those burdensome things one by one on
the side of the trail as I make my own spiritual pilgrimage through this life?
I not only believe my sons would be better off in the future if I adopted such
a perspective, but I also think both they and I would be better off while we
journey through life together in the here and now.
The African American mystical writer, civil
rights leader and chaplain at Howard University, Howard Thurman, expressed well
our need as spiritual pilgrims in one of his prayers; may it become our prayer
too.
Teach me, O God, how to free myself of dearest
possessions,
So that in my trust I shall find restored to me
all I need to walk in Thy path and to fulfill l Thy will.
Let me know Thee for myself that I may not be satisfied
With aught that is less.
Grace and Peace,
Chase
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