One Eye On Eternity, The Other On All My Stuff

Stuff, I got lots of it.

As I often quote Mary Kate Danaher from The Quiet Man, I need “my own china and pewter shinin' about me.  There are years of happy dreamin' in those things of mine and I want them. I want my dream.”  My husband, the ol’ poop, calls it, “Crap.”  The truism describing men being from Mars and women from Venus becomes the boil rising to the surface in our generally peaceful home when he starts his nonsensical “ranting” about all the crap.  Silly, misguided man.  He just doesn’t understand the psychological import of each and every thing.  From the scented candle that I picked up during a highly emotional trip to Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland, to the Santa latch hook rug with pee stains that I crafted in fifth grade- every item has its place.  

Unfortunately, the Christmas season only exacerbates the “stuff” problem.  You see I have labored long and hard over the last thirty years to accumulate special and irreplaceable things so that at no time during a perusal of my home will your eyes rest upon blankness.  Every inch of possible wall space, every surface is graced with something exceptional (in my humble opinion).  With the old furnace constantly blowing a soft film around the place like a covering of magical Christmas snowfall, it would take a steady stream of hired professionals to keep up with the dusting alone.  My resourceful husband’s solution is to use the leaf blower.    

He continually complains he has nowhere to sit in the living room as every horizontal surface is covered in stuff.  In his defense, he does have a legit point (don’t let him know I said that).  To hear him speak though, you would swear he has to squeeze through narrow aisles of tinkling ornaments and holiday bric-a-brac to make it to the couch.  I say it’s ridiculous.  It’s not like I’m a hoarder.  I don’t have piles of newspapers throughout the house or stacks of broken furniture in the basement.  Except for the two antique rocking chairs.  They’re family heirlooms.  Please don’t sit on them.  As if you could.  There’s about fourteen decorative pillows, Christmas pillows, stacked on each one.  Like a shelf.

So okay, maybe I’ll admit that I have a bit of a problem.  If I carefully step back, lie down, and try to psychoanalyze myself, I’ll admit that maybe it’s time I refocus my priorities, especially during this Christmas season, toward stuff that isn’t, well, stuff.  We’ve all heard lecture after discourse on consumerism and excess, but it’s vital to take stock of these lures in our own lives as the tidal waves of “bigger and better and prettier” will never stop tempting us to want more.  To fill every square inch of space, with stuff.                 

Keeping an eye on the real prize…  I truly believe the saints had a special grace for detachment.  We really don’t think of the importance of it- not compared to those lofty cardinal virtues, but I mean they lived “out of a suitcase”, so to speak, never getting too dug in to the enticements, the trappings, of this world.  They were able to see everything through the unclouded lens of this very finite, earthly existence; and were motivated then to work toward other kinds of treasure.  And when you’re not focused so much on acquiring things, you are freer to really see that treasure all around you.  What really matters?  The treasure is in earthen vessels. (2 Corinthians 4:7)  The most important stuff I have, is people.         

So what am I to do?  As I see it, I have three options:  First, I can continue right on spending.  Buy more stuff!  I can head down that narrow-minded road- the pursuit of more possessions.  I can ignore the article in the newspaper about the people down on their luck this Christmas, and pass by the Salvation Army guy because I’m in too big a hurry, or justify my hesitation to give, because I choose that extra knick-knack- even though there’s no more room on my shelves.   

The next option: I could give it all away, right down to the latch hook rug; and live a life of utter minimalism.  I could put on a camel shirt and eat locust in the desert.   Um.  I don’t think so.  Or third, and probably the most “doable”:  pray that during this holy season of Christmas and beyond I truly live the words of Jesus when He tells us in the gospel of Matthew… “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.  But store up treasures in heaven… For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.”