Holiday Musings, Part 1

Rachel Remen, in her book My Grandfather's Blessings, tells a story about a little boy who LOVED Hot Wheels.  She loved this little boy, and his parents didn't have much money.  So Remen, with the help of her staff at the medical clinic she ran, gave him every single Hot Wheel car there was.  And he stopped playing with them.   She asked him why he wasn't playing with them anymore.  "He looked away and in a quivery voice he said, 'I don't know how to love this many cars, Rachel."

I loved this story the moment I read it.  I've seen this happen with my nephews and with Douglas.  When they get too much of something, they stop loving it.

I now ask myself very frequently if I know how to love something.  I will be standing in my closet and a shirt will catch my eye.  "Do I know how to love this shirt?"  So often, the answer is no.  It's an ok shirt.  There's nothing wrong with it.  If you asked me for an explanation of WHY this shirt deserved to get kicked to the curb, I wouldn't be able to give you one.  I used to think something had to not fit me or be really out of style or super un-flattering to warrant the Goodwill pile.  Now I know that even if it's cute and fits, I may just not know how to love it.

I have always been a little bit of a hoarder.  Not a scary hoarder...apparently there's a show on now called "Hoarders" and it sounds CREEPY.  That's not what I mean by hoarding here.  But I have a hard time giving things away.  I worry that I'll wish I had x sweater two months after dropping it off at Goodwill.  I love having clothes that I feel cute in, and I tend to like variety.  This can get very, very out of hand.  When Micah and I got married, he counted my jeans (cute, right?!) and I had something like 12 or 13 pair.

A few years ago,  I learned about one of the principles of yoga that is called Aparigraha, or non-hoarding.  I remember reading something that said that hoarding means you don't trust God to provide for you.  It also talked about how selfish it is to hoard, because the things could be used and loved by someone else instead of sitting in our closet untouched.  In time, I have come to understand how true this all is.  I selfishly keep this shirt in my closet that I don't wear much, that I don't know how to love, when someone else could be wearing it, LOVING it right now - if I would only let it go.  But I keep it because I mistakenly believe the lie that it's up to me to make sure that I have enough - to prepare for the unforeseen circumstances of the future.  God may not bring something else around when I need it.

This, of course, is crap.  If I don't know how to love it NOW, someone else does.  I should let them love it.  Let it go.  If I don't know how to love it now, it is just weighing me down.