Spoiler Alert! For those who have been faithful and even affirming readers, I want to say I have struggled over this week with an under the skin topic bothering me. This morning I woke up thinking how I can handle it maybe with grace in the last paragraph. If not, you may quit reading, delete, and even write me. Just don’t go away. Life may improve.
Back to title. What isn’t used, or gets messed up, or just goes bad while sitting there must be dealt with. At times someone else can rescue and redeem. Middle son had permission to walk the block on trash day. He came back with treasures like 47 no spring tennis balls and several sheets of drywall to upscale the tree house. Yes, eventually all went out for our trash man. For a bit, they had a second life. A variety of other waste just goes. My earliest memory was a some number gallon garbage can which was put out at edge of our property once or twice a week. In Hammond, ours sat on a 17 brick square to keep the bottom dry. A hand cart was nearby to help my mother roll it out front. The mother of a friend of mine regularly scrubbed hers with clorox. I’m not sure the garbage men either noticed or appreciated.
Probably the most exciting part of trash disposal may not be available now. To make it work, one needs a daddy, a pick-up truck, and a sense of adventure. At times, we had something, (I can’t remember specifics) that needed hauling to the city dump. Those who went put on boots and took gloves. One paid for the privilege of driving to a parking area, looking at a glorious array of whatever, and maybe spotting rodents with long tails as one tossed over the offerings you were adding. The trip made for exciting if unacceptable dinner time conversation. Trash is more classified now. A garbage disposal may be first line of defense. Black and green city bins take care of their assigned contents on schedule. Compostable bags hopefully stay in one piece until yard trash is collected.
Yet one kind of garbage, still trashy, exists. I believe in reading and have cut a wide swarth in my lifetime. I have quit some books a chapter in because I didn’t need the content in my memory or because the writing was so poor I kept reaching for a pencil to correct. Other books, not connected to any part of my life or heritage, I have finished. These gave me a window into pain, or struggles, or even historical truth.Those words helped me understand reality in newspapers or from media reports. I have read myself, taught, and read aloud to my own children books on the banned lists, not to their detriment, I hope. So, my struggle this week is how to allow the same privilege of choice to all without denying the possibility of treasure amidst trash to others. Only one book explicitly states its purpose, and it is all good.
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the people of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
Let Me Tell Ya 