The Journey 365
Read: Luke 19
Today is the day before New Year and we all very eager to enter into a new
year. All of us have gone through the most varied experiences last year and we
all have been responsible the way we lived our lives in the year 2012. But as
we enter the new year, I am sure that we all have a prayer that we would want
the new year to be blessed and much less burdensome or problem-less or
crisis-less new year. But if we examine our life, many of the issues that we
faced this year were basically related to the way we have ordered our lives.
Some of the questions that we need to ask ourselves are what is the driving
force in our life or what values drive our life? What do we do in our
life to make us happy?, What were some of the life goals that we pursued, which
were successful and those in which we failed?. One of things that drive people
in this land is the materialistic fervor. Round the year, you will have the
market and media conveying to us that sales of all kind and season is going on.
All these sales only help us to fill our houses with a number of items that we
purchase only never to be used or to be used very sparingly. Recently I read a
wonderful article written by Maureen Jenkins in the CNN news about the concept
and idea of Decluttering. Maureen says that the most important thing that
we need to do before the new year is the act of decluttering. After reading
that article I felt that yes before the New Year, this is one thing that we all
need to do as we start the New Year. Though Maureen has her understanding of
decluttering I would like to view decluttering in a different perspective. What
is decluttering. I define Decluttering as an action where I make a judgment or
a value decision in my life to understand what is precious and what is trash.
You look into each home we will have a number of commodities that could be
considered as trash and considered as precious. One of the unique and strange
things that I have found in certain people is that they like to hoard
everything. There are certain houses in this state where you will have the
basement full of unwanted things. But ask the house owner to throw away, he
feels very guilty. He thinks he may need all that tomorrow. I personally
know a person whose main hobby is to collect all the unwanted things that his
neighbor’s put it away as trash and then bring it home to be kept in his
junkyard or basement. It is not only trash that we hoard. Let us look at our
wardrobe or our closet. The amount of clothes, jeweler that is just lying there
and some of us does not even know how many dresses that we have. Look at our
work table or the kitchen table, and see sometimes the mess that is there on
the table. Hence you will find a common refrain from many houses that “Oh I had
kept that here, now I can’t find it”. One the main objective of decluttering is
to see to it that we throw out of our life all those material trash that we
have collected over the years, things that are just lying in our homes, things
instead of just hoarding in our homes, which could be shared or given to the
less fortunate ones. Declutterin also helps us to reformulate our life in
understanding that we can live without certain things. Another major aspect
that we can do through the act of decluttering is to consciously be aware what
are the valuable and the invaluable aspects in our life. When comparing with
the material things that we have hoarded in our life, the financial blessing
that we have, and compare it with our family and our relationship, what are the
aspects that are valuable? It is sad to see that there are lot of families and
individuals who are ready to compromise on family and relationship so that they
can have more material blessing with the understanding that these are things
that are more valuable than anything else. It is in such a context that we need
to examine our lives to understand what is precious and trash, and only when we
do that will our new year is more blessed than this year.
In the Bible you
have a person who found it very hard to declutter his life. His name is Zacheus
and his life story can be found in Luke 19: 1-10 and this is the portion that
we shall use for our meditation today as we reflect on our theme “Transformed
Living”. Here is one person who has never indulged in the act of
decluttering his life. I view the life of Zacheus, a life where he was more
interested in hoarding. Life viewed only in terms of collecting the best things
in life materialistically and hoarding it with a selfish intention of enjoying
it for oneself. Thus you have Zacheus taking the most unjust means and ways to
become financially rich and also materialistically blessed. People like
Zacheuus wants more and more. If I already have one computer, and the latest
model is released, I want that one too. Zacheus is on a buying spree, a hoarding
spree. Zacheus represents all those people who are least they concerned whether
they will be able to use all the material and electronic gadgets that they buy,
but they have narcissistic pleasure in buying those things. Zacheus was a man
who was rich, but yet he was more and greedier to have more riches. What Jesus
does in the life of Zacheus is the act of decluttering. Jesus enables Zacheus
to think as to what are the essential aspects of life. All these years Zacheus
was only interested in hoarding and never in sharing or giving to someone. Joy
was found in hoarding but once he encounters Jesus Christ, he is able to
declutter his life. When he tells Jesus that “half of the riches I give to the
poor and if I have cheated anyone I will return him four fold” [Luke 19: 8],
Zacheus understood what is valuable and what is a trash in life. He understood
that there is greater joy in sharing that hoarding and that in life one needs
to declutter so that we have a new perspective of life and living. I think as
we start the new year, our Lord wants to come to our life and to our homes
asking us to declutter our lives and homes so that we not only make our life
more organized, but we are also in a better frame of mind, to understand the
valuable and the invaluable aspects that is there in our life. What is precious
and what is trash in our life will determine how our new year is going to
be.