Possession(s)

"My possessions fly away from me. Like locusts they are on the wing, flying. . ." A lament on the destruction of Ur, as quoted in The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin

As I start a new job, with better pay, I'm trying to remind myself of how I have lived the past three years. I wouldn't wish it on anyone--I've had some pretty crappy jobs, none of which actually paid the bills, but on the plus side, I have learned to live frugally, and to control my wants and not let my haves and have nots control me. It's a lesson I do wish upon others--the lesson, and not necessarily the circumstances that often confer it.

This hasn't been a stretch for me, in reality. In Kenya I lived without electricity and running water for a year, in a 10 by 10 brick house that had one room. I ate pretty much the same thing every day.

Someone once told me, on his deathbed, that debt is a sin and a tool of the Devil. I'm not necessarily persuaded of the religious content, but the financial content is truthful. He was a religious man, an evangelical; still, I wonder how many Christians are mindful of the parable in Luke 12, 13-21? Lost from the Greek is the fact that the farmer's possessions called out to him.

What is possessed, and what possesses us?

I failed to fully understand the Songlines quote until recently, when it clicked. The moment described, when all is full of destruction, is also a moment of liberation, total freedom. It is not an accident that the possessions are likened to locusts--a plague, but one moving rapidly away. Loss of complication, gain of simple beauty and truth.

I'm not about to do this--not sure the kids would enjoy a cave--but I admire this man for his stand. He is a free man, living a life worthy of examination.

I'm not preaching--we all come to simple truth and beauty in our own ways, or not at all. Just meditating on what it means to own, and be owned, and how that influences our behavior.