Amass and Divest

The title sounds like a business plan for a stock broker or a thriving company. On a more foundational level, these three words can work for a civilization or an individual. We have knowledge of the past through that study known as archeology, meaning the trash of one time leads to the treasure of a later date. Funeral practices of various eras provide clues to what was necessary to have for daily life. Pyramids opened to reveal what a pharaoh might need in the after life while entire Viking ships were sunk complete with the captain to assure a good journey. The Han Dynasty has that gathering of terra-cotta figures or mingqui (aka servants) so your every wish is my command forever. I have seen burial mounds of Native Americans at Cahokia, Illinois, while chaperoning an 8th grade field trip which gave a glimpse into life on the prairie where rivers intersect.

So, does knowing this offer me another option. Instead of the time and effort I am expending to sort drawers and clean out closets and make decision of Good Will or garbage, maybe I just need to cover the whole house in clear wrap and will it to the highest bidding research group. By the time the covering is pulled back, some revelations will be truth and some hypothetical guesses. Look, here is a broken sewing machine, an example of mechanics of that time that she literally wore out. This pile of rusty trowels, diggers, and a loper, remnants of the owner digging and tending a yard? A single older woman lived here, why would she need enough plates to feed a family reunion? And those sets of silverware have value. Amazingly, the iron Dutch oven hasn’t rusted through yet.

Really, come and go choices for things are the easy part or the least important decisions. Who cares about cheap department store jewelry, yet I want to hand over a special bracelet that reminds me of a mother/daughter trip to Santa Fe. One son took and framed pictures of roses that I admired in England. Another son took the time to fold for me 1,000 cranes as a symbolic blessing. Journals have sentences like the one about my mother’s palmetto fan: ” She took it to non-airconditioned church and if I were very good, I could use it.” All three paragraphs are not a comment on things, only the necessity of my taking the final task to completion in the best way possible. Dust myself off, take a deep breath, and choose this verse.

Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. 

Philippians 4:13 The Message