Perspective On My Stuff

Posted by Jonathan Brink
January 17, 2008

nova.jpg

Anne Jackson has a great story about a friend of hers who needed a chair and found one on the side of the road. And this story got me thinking about certain times in my life when I didn’t have anything and even the simplest things looked good. And these ruminations put me in a serious state of wonder about my own perspective on my stuff.

When I was in high school I participated in Outward Bound’s 22 day wilderness program for youth. It was an awesome discovery in self discipline and denial. At the beginning of the trip I couldn’t walk fifty yards with a 50 pounds backpack. At the end I could walk 50 miles with one. Part of the program required me to eat simple foods that I could carry, like G.O.R.P. and dried fruits and grains. We also had little packages of Sardines packed in flavored oils. At the beginning of this trip I wouldn’t even think of eating the sardines. But after ten days of basically starving the sardines started to look pretty good. In fact, they tasted really good during my solo when I had almost nothing else to eat.

And this type of thing didn’t just happen once. It happened all the time to me. When I was in college, there was a period of about one six months that I didn’t have a car. I lived on campus so it wasn’t an insurmountable problem but it kind of sucked when I had a date, having to ask the girl to drive. But a friend of mine offered to sell me his beater Chevy Nova for a thousand bucks. It was an ugly car but it worked and looked pretty nice as an alternative to not driving. And the moment I took that car home, I was a new man. I had a car.

But over time these things lost their value or capacity to make me feel good about having them. The moment I got home, I never even touched a can of sardines. After two weeks of driving the Nova I couldn’t sell the sucker fast enough. It was ugly.

And when I look back on these experiences, of which there are so many, I am reminded that what changed was not my stuff but my perspective. And my ego somehow seems to change my perspective on so much stuff. Because a chair is simply a chair isn’t it? But when I don’t have a chair and I need one, everything looks good. But when I have several chairs, only the cherry stained one’s from Pottery Barn will do.

Why? Do tell my friends.

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Consumerism, Life, humanity

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  • I think it has alot to do with the consumerist, media driven culture we live in. We are bombarded with images of bigger and shinier things all day long we are told that if we buy them we will be a better person, people will like us more, etc.

    We find our value in what we have instead of who we are... Children loved by the Father
  • Sometimes I feel like a fish swimming up the media streaming from my television set.
  • blub, blub, blub.

    your post just prompted me to post some thought about when I was most content with what I had. it was when I had the least.
  • I think part of it has to do with what limits we set for ourselves. Why do we settle for trash over nothing, rather than waiting until the treasure comes along? How much is God a part of this process?

    It reminds me of the parable of the 2 sons. All too often We go after the quick, easy and immediate, when God has something much better He wants for us, if only we would wait. What did the prodigal lose in leaving and coming back?

    Then do we act like the second son who never left, but got his shorts in a knot of what he thought was unfair? Fairness is not comparing ourselves to others, to what they have and we don't or vicey voo; but in recognizing all that we have, much or little, comes from our Heavenly Father...

    Stuff is just stuff. It is a tool to be used. How we use it is what gives significance to it. The more we have, the more we have to let it go to God. At any rate, we need to hold everything with at most a loose grasp. The moment we tighten our hold on something, it becomes an idol.
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