Too Much Stuff!

Back in the early 1970’s when I was doing my undergraduate degree in Applied Behavioral Science, one of the popular approaches to working with people was called “values clarification.” This technique was intended to help people think through what was important to them – in other words, to “clarify their values” – by giving them scenarios which required them to make hard choices. Those decisions would reveal their values, ethics, morals, etc. One example of such a “forced-decision” problem was the lifeboat which would hold only so many people, and there is one person too many needing to be rescued; who has to be left behind, and why? Another less brutal example was which vehicle would you buy: a sports car, a pickup truck, a station wagon (yes, we had station wagons back then), or a cheap gas-miser? And then, explain why you chose what you did.

Well, this past week we saw a forced-choice exercise played out for real here in Northern California, when an overflowing Oroville reservoir began to seriously erode the integrity of the dam’s main and auxiliary spillways. Fearing an imminent and catastrophic failure of the auxiliary spillway – and a resulting 30-foot wall of water – the sheriffs in the threatened downstream counties ordered mandatory evacuations. Suddenly, over 100,000 people had to grab what they could and “get out of Dodge” right away. So what did they grab? What was vital, valuable, or irreplaceable? What could be abandoned to the flood waters or maybe looters? What would they hold onto tightly, and what would they not even miss? But even a tougher question is this: which of two important, valued items would they take if they could only take one? And all those questions had to be answered right now!

In a way, I am going through that same exercise myself, though as far as I know I have a little more time to answer such questions, and far more latitude as far as what I can keep. The situation my wife and I are facing can be summed up in one 3-word phrase:

“too much stuff.”

First, there is the accumulation of the usual things people gather over 42 years of marriage: furniture, appliances, clothes, tools, etc. Then there’s my rock collection which we moved here from the Midwest 22 years ago (Overheard from the people who helped us unload the truck when we arrived: “What do you have in these boxes, rocks?” To which we answered, “Yes.”). There’s camping equipment. There’s my wife’s babysitting toys and Christmas ornament collection. And then, there’s my books.

Ah yes, my books. Hundreds – no, thousands – of books. I own enough books, non-fiction mainly, in enough categories of knowledge that should civilization collapse and the power grid go permanently down, mankind could recreate civilization from my library alone. (I once saw an episode of “Hoarders” where one of the hoarders claimed the same civilization-preserving value for his massive hoard of books. I actually got nervous watching him . . . he sounded a little too much like me!) History, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, zoology, herpetology, math, languages (ancient and modern), religion, and classic literature – you name it, and I probably have a book about it.

Even so, my library might have been manageable in our 13 bookcases and 8′ X 10′ floor-to-ceiling shelves covering an entire wall, except for two significant events: first, my retirement which meant bringing home my theology books and Bible commentaries from my church office (7 bookcases worth) and second, a roof leak which destroyed the wall behind the floor-to-ceiling shelves and required that they be torn out. Suddenly, we are buried in stacks and boxes of books in every room of the house.

About which my wife has been extremely patient (the archaic word for it, “long-suffering,” somehow comes to mind). She long ago gave up any claim on our bookshelves for her books, and switched to reading on her Kindle instead. Love does that.

Love also confronts us with reality,

and so it was that Karen raised the question while watching the Oroville evacuations on TV: “What if the levees protecting our area broke and we had to evacuate immediately? What would we save?” That was a tough question, and a situation I hope we never have to face, but it’s one that we need to answer . . . before the call to evacuate comes.

A full discussion of what to grab could get into issues of “prepping,” go-bags, and zombie apocalypses, all of which are beyond the scope of this article (though I probably have books about them). For me right now, just focusing on the question of which books I would save is enough. What would I do?

I think I would try to save the books that to me are irreplaceable: really old books (some are 150-200 years old), books signed by the authors, gift books from friends, a few special books I really like, and a Bible. Most other books are replaceable, though if I lost them I wouldn’t necessarily spend money to replace them, since I got them for free or almost free.

But as soon as I make that list of books-to-save, the question then arises: “If I am willing to lose the other books in an emergency, then why am I holding on to them now, when there isn’t?”

As I thought about the book-saving dilemma, it occurred to me that it is a metaphor for much of life: we are all holding onto things – material, behavioral, and relational – that take up room, time, energy, and financial resources. Can we really afford the cost? What do we have to give up in order to hold onto them? Why are we holding onto those things? Are they good and helpful things, or do they corrupt and bring us down? Are we only keeping those things out of habit and not out of choice? What would our life be like if we could sit down and plan what we want it to be?

Unlike our values-clarification exercises or my book-choosing dilemma, the life questions of what we would keep and what we would give up are really important, because we all are facing a time-limit on our lives, when all the things we own and do will be swept away in the great spillway break called death. We don’t know when that will come for any of us, but it will come. Before it does,

now is the time to assess how we are spending our time and ask ourselves what we would keep, and what we would give up, if we knew our time here was short.

And so I ask you, are you living as a faithful steward (manager) of what God has given you? Are you using your time, energy, finances, and abilities to help and bless others? Are you working in whatever you do for the Lord, rather than for yourself? Are you praising God and proclaiming Jesus Christ? And is there something you can give up that is standing in your way, keeping you from serving Christ as you know you could? These are questions worth asking, answering, and acting upon!

And as for my books, I need to remember the words of our Lord in Matthew 6:19-21, where he said we are not to lay up treasures on earth where they can be destroyed or stolen, but rather in heaven, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord look upon you with favor, and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Ecclesiastes 12:12

P.S. Karen just read this and asked, “So, does this mean you’ll actually start getting rid of some of your books now?” We’ll see . . .