It’s Just Stuff–Isn’t it?

Last updated on: September 30, 2016 at 9:20 am by Marilyn McEntyre

It’s Just Stuff–Isn’t it? 2016-09-30T09:20:50-07:00 Marilyn McEntyre

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Sue decided to move after twelve years in the same apartment. The decision was followed by seven months of anguish. Her apartment was a museum of totems—significant and symbolic objects, each with a story she was ready to tell, each contributing to the general kaleidoscopic effect, dazzling when you entered, a little bewildering when you tried to decide where to sit down.

A wicker swing hung from a giant hook near the center of her living room. A striped kite swayed in the entryway when the door opened, its 10-foot tail tacked to the wall with pushpins. Drumsticks stuck out of an African percussion instrument. Everyone who sat on the fat floor pillow next to it (handmade by one of Sue’s friends) played it. Notices of weekend workshops, photographs of friends’ babies, recent postcards and fortunes from fortune cookies were tacked to the refrigerator door with little magnets. They slid when the door opened, since most were holding down several layers of information.

Every evening I spent at Sue’s house some object caught my attention and brought forth a story: “Ray gave me that silk butterfly just before we broke up . . . .” “Remember that student I took in for a while when she was evicted? She did that charcoal sketch . . . .” “That afghan belonged to my mother. Her sister made it before she died.” “That glass thing? Oh, that holds some hairs from Dusty, my dog.

Getting ready to move wasn’t just a matter of packing, or of making hauls to Goodwill or the dump. Sue had to find a home for every object she wasn’t going to keep. She knew about “traveling light”; she’d been to more Zen retreats than anyone else I knew, and listened to teachings about the simple life. But she couldn’t manage to simplify. She wasn’t a materialist of the sort who fill the corners of their lives with appliances and trendy clothing, but her material environment so weighted with significance she began to sink under it. As she picked up objects one after another and scanned her mental list of intimates for someone to bestow them upon, I began to understand something about the danger of sentimentality—something Flannery O’Connor, bless her edgy soul, warned us about. When every cigar is a phallic symbol, when every object is clouded in an aura of memory, when a broken pot, even a hand-made one, is cause for grief, and every small grief demands a ceremony, spirituality is not so very different from acquisitiveness. The atmosphere becomes viscous and heavy with meaning.

Sue gave me several things: a daguerreotype of someone—an ancestor? A piece of rose quartz on a bed of cotton. Found on one of her many travels? I didn’t know. And if I had known would I have valued them more? I failed to feel the requisite gratitude when I unwrapped them. She wasn’t giving me gifts; she was giving me responsibilities—things to take care of for her sake, or to dispose of when she wasn’t looking because she hadn’t been able to decide how to do it herself.

I believe that everything in the material world can be a means of seeing, that “Even a stone can be a teacher.” But when that conviction becomes promiscuous sentimentality it becomes dangerous. The metaphoric impulse can take one out like the falcon to where he cannot hear the falconer.

And I wondered: when everything is a sacrament is anything a sacrament?

Sue got moved. I helped her hang pictures in her new condo before any of the furniture came. She looked around at the empty house, bemused. “I know it sounds funny,” she murmured, “But I wish I could just leave it this way—empty. It feels so . . .” she searched for a word . . . “Free.”

“Maybe the moving van will run into a ditch,” I observed helpfully.

Now she is trekking in the Himalayas. Maybe she will learn simplicity from the Dalai Lama. Maybe she will bring back souveniers.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 30, 2016

We Learn by Grieving how to Grieve

Next Post

September 30, 2016 Trust in Transitions

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Tabernacle" mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Cupboard Holy altar Dwelling place Sacrifice