Easter "Stuff"

Well today is the day after Easter. Easter has been really different this year. Easter has come at about the earliest possible date in the traditional liturgical calendar. Easter is what we call a moveable feast. It always falls the first Sunday after the full moon following the vernal equinox or March 21. Well the full moon this year hit on Friday, March 21st. Therefore, Easter this year is about as early as it can possibly come. And when it comes this early, it just does not seem much like Easter. For us, here in East Tennessee, spring is barely starting to show itself. Besides that, they are calling for snow flurries this evening. It just does not feel or seem like Easter.
The other issue for me is that this year’s season of Lent has also been very different. My wife’s aunt, who was age 90, died during Lent. Her death was not a tragic death nor was it unexpected, but nonetheless, it was a sad event with a mixture of emotions for my wife and me. Her death did bring with it relief from suffering. And up until the time of her death, we really felt helpless to help her other than fight like hell to try and make her comfortable. It really was a very helpless feeling to stand by and watch someone you care about loose their ability to communicate in a coherent way, see them in pain, and then know how to help them; not only the physical pain she was in but also the emotional pain, for her and us, of loosing mobility and independence. The term “quality of life” hits between the eyes and we know for sure what it means. Even though we knew she was going to die very soon, we still had this sense of trying to hang on a little longer.
The other thing we are faced with when someone dies is what do you do with his or her stuff? For the majority of us in the U.S., over the age of 30, have an awful lot of stuff. Furniture, clothes, pictures, china, ironing boards, magazine, books, cookware, etc., etc., the list is really endless. The temptation is to think, “oh wow, I am going to be able to have more stuff”. But then where do you put the new stuff when you are already overloaded with stuff anyway? So, then you have to really stop and discern, what of all the old and new stuff do I really need. It really is quite the dilemma. We think, “oh, I could sell that on E-Bay” (which we probably will), but only the stuff we are willing to part with. So how do you decide what you are willing to part with. After all, it is just stuff...
The problem lies in the meaning we give to our stuff. I will be the first to admit, I like my stuff. And my stuff is hard to part with sometimes. It is especially hard to part with if I think it is something that has monetary value or that I will use again sometime in the near future. Or even worse are those things that have sentimental value... As I said before, it really is quite the dilemma.
Now, let me get back to Easter and Lent. This year, during Lent I took on the discipline of trying to simplify my life. In other words, learn to live with less stuff. Then guess what happened... I’ve told the story already. So what do I do? Well, I had an “aha” yesterday. As we were helping Aunt Sara’s son pull the last of the “valuable” stuff out of the apartment, we were discussing what to do with it all. For you see, Aunt Sara’s son lives in France and there is only so much he can take back with him in a suitcase (He really is the lucky one!). My wife and I both felt very odd and somewhat guilty about taking possession of a large majority of the stuff. We did not feel it was ours to keep in that way. The “aha” was that just because you have the stuff, does not mean you possess it. Then we came up with the whole idea of saying, okay all this stuff now belongs to ALL of us. Our intention now is to pass it around and use it within the family. That to me was liberating. We now are simply keepers of the stuff until someone else needs it or wants to use it. And that made my life much more simple...
There was a great lesson to learn (or rather re-learn)in all that for me. For one to possess something, potentially takes away the opportunity for others to enjoy or make use of the thing in possession. As soon as you possess or own something, it takes a lot of energy to hang on to the possession. We then become slaves to what we own. The possessions end up owning us...
Easter did come early this year. I rather missed recognizing its arrival because of my preoccupation with all the stuff. Easter always comes shortly after the first day of spring. It is a time of renewal and things coming up from the ground out of their winter graves. A resurrection if you will. Despite how tightly we hang on to the stuff of life, the cycle of life continues. I think I will choose to let go of the stuff despite my tight grip. Easter will continue to come, along with the things that really matter. My hope is that I will notice and quit holding on to the stuff...

Starfish Movers Wanted!

It has been a while since I posted anything to my blog. Like most people, I think I have gone through periods in my life in which I am less motivated to do things that challenge me. One of those things is writing about things that are meaningful and impact life. So having said that and made my lame excuses, I am now motivated to start back up with a regular blog; at least for today I am motivated...
I am in the process of organizing another mission trip to Honduras with Osman Hope. My trips to Honduras each year, for the past four years, have become something of which I have become passion for me. My first trip to Honduras was truly life changing and made me even more aware at a very gut level, the needs of people in the world outside of our comfort zone here in the United States. To travel to and work side-by-side with people living in a third world country can’t help but to impact you in a very special and meaningful way.
Despite the current economic downturn here in the US with soaring gas prices, the cost of food going up and the housing market crash, we really are still very privileged and fortunate to live where we do and have all that we have. Even though some in our communities live pay check to pay check, they still have a standard of living that is leaps and bounds ahead of most of the rest of the world. Millions live not pay check to pay check but meal to meal. But even more tragically is loss of spirit and loss of hope that many around the world face each and every day. When you see this first hand, it most certainly calls one to “do something”... I found that to be an overwhelming call.
There is a story about a person walking on the beach and they see millions of starfish being washed to shore dying. Off in the distance they see a man walking back and forth from the shore to the water. As they get closer, they see that the man is taking starfish and putting them back into the water. The person walking on the beach stops and asks the man, "Why are your doing this? There is no way in the world you could begin to make a difference for all these millions of starfish." The man kept at his task and simply looked up and said as he dropped a starfish back into the water, “it made a difference for that one”...
I think that is how it is for us as we face the overwhelming task of addressing poverty and hunger in the world. We can only do it one person at a time. As we move from just one or two addressing problems to 10, 20, 100 people being involved in the issue of addressing world poverty and hunger the impact is increased exponentially . Image how the starfish story would have been different if it ended with the person on the beach getting their friends involved with moving starfish, and then their friend’s friends... They would have been able to get the majority of the starfish back into the ocean.
We are blessed with having an abundance of resources, knowhow and money in this country. Change occurs when people are motivated to change. Motivation comes from feeling something on an emotional level. That is why I like to have new people go with me on my trips to Honduras. They come away motivated, acutely aware and knowing the needs of people in third world countries. They in turn make others aware and get them involved.
So, my goal is to keep moving starfish one at a time. Then too, to get others involved in moving starfish. Then maybe, those folks will, in turn, get others to move starfish. If we do that way, just maybe, we can have a whole nation of starfish movers...
If you are interested in joining the next trip to Honduras, please check out http://ezmissiontravel.com/osmanhopetrip.html