Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Things

We are staying in an incredible home. I don't use the word 'incredible' casually here. We are on a ski mountain in a home built and furnished out of wood and stone and the most lavish fabrics and pieces. The bedrooms have walk out decks and the main stone deck must surely cost more than our home. I sit on the deck in the shade since AC is off, and remember in my body that nature heals me.

I don't covet the house or anything in it. The deck and view are the treasures to me. I was thinking , surrounded by all these things, that we have lost the intimacy of things because we have so much. A treasured mirror, a pen, a small leather bound book that fits into the palm of the hand - who even notices these things anymore let alone ponders all they present or remember how they came to us?

We have lost our companionship w small treasures and our minds hunger in a way that cannot be satisfied. I think having a lot, living in a world with so much, is the reason this has happened. I never stop to be stunned at all the stuff a family can haul out into a driveway for a garage sale. Or how much is in a house we clean out after gramma dies. We have stuff. Stuff. Such a good word - it is a noun AND a verb. Our treasures are lost in our stuff.

1 comment:

Karla said...

Kendall cried loudly in the car on the way to Pilates today. She had not picked up a "chapter book" like her siblings had to bring with her. After a while, I asked her to stop crying and talk to me about what she did have. "I don't have anything!" she sobbed. Emma piped up, "All she has is her blankie, Mom." This said with us driving down the road in 100 degree heat with cool air refreshing our skin, healthy bodies thinking, seeing, hearing, not to mention each other. She came around. Your post reminds me that I need to come around too, from complaint, apathy, self-pity. There is no joy without thanks--without noticing the small that is the big! "He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God." (Psalm 50:23).