Wednesday, May 13, 2020

Trek Day Ten

joy is not in things, it is in us
"Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" - from Isiah 55:1-5

Stuff. Ugh. 

When I get ready to clean my house, I realize that of all the tasks there are to do: washing dishes, wiping down countertops, washing windows, mopping floors, cleaning sinks and toilets, ironing … the only task I really dread is figuring out what to do with all the stuff that makes it hard to keep the house clean. Sitting right now at my kitchen island, a quick scan tells me there are more than 50 things sitting on the countertops. And that's if I count a crock holding 20 kitchen utensils as just one item. 


I just cleaned in here!   At our house we call it the curse of horizontal surfaces.


I wonder sometimes how this became normalized. I wonder if you also feel tension between a compulsion to keep buying things, and a gut level aversion to doing so. I do well for a while in not buying stuff for myself, but then feel guilty if I don't buy stuff for someone else (who is also struggling with affluenza). Yet I wonder if the gifts I buy feel like the burden of more stuff to the recipient?



I also struggle with what to do with the thoughtful (but unneeded) things that come into our home regularly as gestures of kindness. How long do I hold on to something that I don't need, just because it feels wrong to not keep a gift?  Ugh. Stuff!

When it comes to gift-giving, at our house we have been trying to move our  expectations from things to experiences. Rather than buying a child yet another toy, why not a shared outing tailored to that child's interests? Of course, in the age of coronavirus, that is now much more difficult. Ugh.

I am left today with many questions.


  
Questions for Today

Do I give the people who love me what they most want from me?
Am I able to spend the time I need to build special relationships with the people I love?
Are things sometimes a substitute for "being there" with the ones I love?

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