Good Thursday morning! Snow still present, check; cold, not as bad, check; the sun a bit clouded, check; looks like the day has begun for us. It seems that New York City now has a garbage collection problem. All of that snow we heard about has already melted, but their garbage has now piled up rather alarmingly. I have difficulty in imagining the amount of garbage that 8 million or so people produce in such a small area. Just in my house with one person and two cats we manage to produce quite a bit of garbage to haul away each week. Much of the garbage is biodegradable; we save the cardboard, aluminum, newspaper, and magazines for recycling, and I store any dead electronics and batteries for the Chamber recycling drive. But there is still some things, plastics mainly, that might sit in a landfill until long after I am gone from the earth. We seem to have developed a talent for making things that are both too permanent in their material, but not permanent enough in their usefulness. Anyone with a garage or storage shed can tell us how various plastic containers build up over time. A few years go by and garages and sheds tend to get full of stuff. We know that too much stuff can be a problem in our lives yet... when it comes time to move the first thought when we look around is... oh my word, where did all this stuff come from?
Guilty as charged! For many years I worshiped stuff: the acquisition of stuff, the showing off of stuff, the stuff to service other stuff, and of course, the stuff-I-don't-need stuff. Should we get into the stuff I got 'cuz a friend got it first stuff? I have held a couple of garage sales and got rid of a lot of stuff, but still there is quite a bit of stuff in this house and garage of mine. We even have organizations called thrift stores to help us get rid of all that spare stuff we have. When the economy has troubles, we are encouraged to go out and get more stuff. Are we beginning to see what Jesus was talking about when he mentioned serving mammon: the Greek word for money and possessions?
If a person accumulates too much, he can end up serving those possessions instead of the other way around. We had that problem back at Cabela's too. When my crew installed the cabling in stores we needed various tools and supplies to get the job done. Then, the company decided to have contractors do the work. Suddenly we had this stockpile of stuff that cost a lot in the acquiring but had practically overnight become a pile of useless stuff. Every time we had to gather and move that stuff from one storage area to another, we were serving the stuff. To my knowledge they are still dealing with the stuff left over from those days. If you look around your home and find things that are not beautiful (decorations), or handed down from ancestors (heirlooms), or better have a definite function (necessities and entertainment), you probably have too much stuff and end up serving it as you move it around, clean it, store it, and wonder why in the world you got it in the first place. I'm there with you brothers and sisters! It's time to make sure that my stuff serves me and not the other way around. As spring arrives in a few weeks, I'll be looking at having yet another garage sale or making donations or whatever to get away from serving stuff.
Serve God and not the stuff!
Bucky
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