What would I be without my STUFF?

** These days I’m thinking a lot about THINGS, because we have been surrounded by and have been handling a plethora of STUFF from our previous locations (most of it from thirty years' worth of living together). But then we go out to Costco, Home Depot, and Target and see tons more things.
Not complaining that they’re there, but what’s bugging me is that I’m SEEKING and BUYING more and more things and bringing them home. On the surface, and perhaps for real, there are new things to accommodate our new home. But there’s also this APPETITE for acquisition that seems so obvious these days.

So many things we have been trying to find “homes” for here are not part of our active life these days. They are artifacts from other periods – kind of like an archaeological dig that chronicles a past civilization by its discards and detritus. But is that who we are today?

No, but it could be argued that these things have contributed to what we are today. But why keep them? One obvious reason is that they may be needed in the future as references, documentation, tools and they may be part of some rekindled interest. And yet, one wonder if it would be all that tragic not to have them.

A friend said today that the people of New Orleans are really feeling the loss of their “stuff.” While it’s easy to empathize with the sense of loss, the complications that ensue when certain stuff is lost, and the emotional burden of losing track of the sentimental things that put us in touch with each other and with states of mind that are pleasant and meaningful, still, what is all that compared to the vast treasury of talents, skills, cognitive and physical functions that still remain? True, the effort of rebuilding and replacing one’s “home” is sad and hard, but perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult if we lived more consciously in the fullness of our innate abilities as spiritual creatures.

A spiritual base in consciousness would affirm that all that “stuff” is just a poor approximation of the wealth of goodness that constitutes and surrounds us. As emanations of the one Source of all reality, all identity and all goodness, we already possess all we need in order to make life worthwhile. And while the past may not feel as near as a lost sentimental object might suggest, we still have our intelligence, our drive, our creativity and our expectation of good to make us feel whole and useful.

We need not – indeed cannot – be defined by the objects we possess – or don’t possess. We must be defined by our Source, which is never lost, never depleted or destroyed. The light that shines us forth is inextinguishable, and the sooner we grasp and embrace this fact the sooner we can recover from the separation from our material things