Stuff

It's January, and the last thing you might expect in the heart of winter is a post about a tornado. But a couple of weeks ago, an F2 tornado whipped through a rural area south of here and destroyed the home of a couple who are members of the church my husband and I belong to. The tornado tore the roof off their house, and although all four walls were still standing, the house is a total loss. We spent some time last Saturday helping with clean-up, and I had some (half-formed) thoughts to sort out.

The first thing we did was at the church's family life center, where the couple had brought things to dry out. My job was to unpack dishes, wipe them down, and leave them on a table so the woman could re-pack them for storage. I felt a little bad because I found it sort of fun, kind of like opening Christmas presents. She has a lot of neat, unique dishes. Some of them were obviously pieces that had been given to her by older family members, like a couple of small china bowls with a really lovely pattern of violets. I have no idea what the bowls were for (maybe finger bowls?) but they were SO pretty. As I was wiping down her dishes, I started thinking what people would see if the contents of my kitchen cabinets were packed into boxes and spread out on folding tables in a church gymnasium. The answer is - not much. Most of what I have is pretty functional, and most of it is not all that pretty or valuable. I do have a partial set of stoneware that was on my wedding registry years ago, but we didn't get the whole set. I also have a little collection of creamers that I put together during a phase in which my mother and I enjoyed going "junking." Some of them are kind of neat.

But....during Christmas break (before the tornado), I was trying to make room in my cabinets for another functional piece (a grain mill, which I might talk about in a different post), and I thought, "Why am I keeping these creamers? And why did I buy this set of handmade mugs from a student at the university's art sale? I'm never going to use them. Why do I keep them?"

Later, we went over to the site of the damaged house to help with clean-up. I got the job of scooping up mushy drywall scraps and insulation from the living room/kitchen floor to be carted out to a trash heap. (I discovered something about myself - I am a compulsive "cleaner." I would have stayed all day or until all the mess was scooped out, if I hadn't had to take my husband's wishes into consideration, ha ha.) Most of what I saw while scooping was just the soggy remains of the ceiling, but I did come across a few items, like a picture of the family in a frame with a broken glass, or the remains of a potted plant. It's amazing to think how all that destruction happened in seconds. It's also sobering to think these houses that we think are so solid are basically just a collection of toothpicks and cardboard, no match for Nature when she gets serious.

I may not have pretty dishes, but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be a lot of "stuff" to go through if a tornado hit this house. I look around the rooms and there is so much stuff we've accumulated over the years. Functional stuff like the canisters full of beans and rice. Outdated stuff like the collection of CDs we haven't listened to since digital music came along. Stuff that other people have given us, like the antique typewriter from my dad. I have big weaknesses for three categories of stuff:

• Books - I think I've kept almost every book that came into my possession; I have nearly every picture book and chapter book that belonged to my kids, even the ones I didn't like that much.
• Fabric - I have, over the years, accumulated a lot of fabric that I intended to make into clothes but somehow never had time for. Now my kids are grown up and my husband is retired, and no one really needs me to sew for them. But the fabric remains.
• Family pictures and memorabilia - This is another thing I didn't have time for - yet. I've kept all kinds of stuff from our family vacations, planning to make scrapbooks so we can relive the fun. But right now it's all stuffed in boxes and bags, waiting for "someday."

Again, I ask myself, "Why do I keep all these things? Would I really miss them--even the brochures I picked up on our trip to Yellowstone--if something happened and I lost them?" There's a big move toward minimalism these days, and I understand the appeal. But still, I sort of like to have more than one set of placemats to switch around once in a while. And some of the creamers are really pretty, even if they are in a box where I see them maybe once a year.

I don't know. The relationship with stuff is complicated. Maybe it takes something like a tornado to clarify that relationship. While wiping down dishes, I accidentally let a small piece that was tucked inside a larger piece fall out, and it broke. I felt terrible about it, and while I was apologizing to the woman who had already lost so much, she said something to the effect of, "Things are just things. I think the Lord has given me a view of what really matters through all this."

Amen.