Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

I can’t put it off any longer. It’s Saturday night. I have to face this week’s readings.

I’ve put off writing for so long because I really enjoyed my hiatus, my month away from my desk, my month of getting out of my head and into Martha time. It started with the fulfillment of a cherished fantasy: I rented a dumpster. The family thought I was joking. I had been threatening since winter that our vacation this year would consist of a week at home with a dumpster. It turned out to be a month. And it was great.

First went the obvious stuff: The broken down sofa, the vacuum cleaner that made scary smoke smells, the off-cuts of plywood and random chunks of insulation from walling-in the upstairs of the barn. We were having fun, and feeling very freed.

As we moved into the finer layers of our various rooms, the pace slowed. It wasn’t that our energy was waning, far from it. It was our engagement in the process. We began to offer one another quiet gifts of time and presence. I first noticed it when I pulled out two big boxes of old photographs. I began to sort through them, tossing some into a trash box and others into a keep pile. Before long Robert started reaching into the trash box, retrieving things, asking questions, encouraging me to keep more than I really wanted. Mallory curled herself up beside me. She wanted to hear about pieces of my life so far removed in time and space; she drew out stories of people long dead or estranged.

One was a picture of my great-aunt Elsie, the patron whose voice had been my constant companion through the purge, her wise and gentle voice saying, “We keep things for a certain amount of time.” I remember her saying that to my mother, and I take comfort in its permission, both permission to keep and permission to toss. In one simple phrase, Aunt Elsie taught me the essence of stewardship.

Last Monday the dumpster was rolled off. Four cubic yards of junk…three packed carloads to the thrift shop…four trips to the recycling center…and priceless time with my family and its artifacts. It felt good.

It was in that lighter state of mind that I returned to my desk this week. After a month of sorting, tossing, donating, scrubbing, clearing, shop-vaccing, and power-washing, I returned to life inside my head. As I moved back into the more familiar Mary mode, I was greeted by a lectionary reading from Ecclesiastes:

Pointless. It’s all a pointless waste of time. Whoever buys your house is just going to change everything any way. Your paint job might help you sell the house, but after that, who cares? And when you die? She’s never going to remember which stories go with which heirlooms; she probably won’t even keep most of them. No matter how carefully you provide for her, at some point she’s going to cash out her trust fund and live her own life. It’s all pointless.

You can understand why I’ve put off writing….

How do I reconcile the words of Ecclesiastes with the stewardship of abundance? Where’s the good news? I followed Jesus’ advice to the rich young ruler—I got rid of all the clutter, all the stuff that was clogging my life and getting in the way of my family’s wholeness. I gave anything usable to a thrift shop ministry that serves an impoverished rural area, with the proceeds supporting the vicar’s care for individuals in crisis. I recycled the materials that can be reused to tread a bit more gently on the resources of creation. How could it all have been in vain?

The answer, of course and as always, lies in our baptism. Through baptism, we are called to live not just as stewards of our stuff, but as stewards of one another. We are called to care for one another’s hopes, and dreams, and prayers…and memories, and stories, and artifacts.

The fellowship of family time and the passing of wisdom and memory across generations is just as spiritually formative at home as it is at church. The early church, after, broke its bread in homes, around the tables of its members. And what better way to live out Christ’s teachings by word and example than to sit with my child while she sorts her own belongings for donation, nurturing her love of neighbor and care for those in need?

In the end, it’s a both/and: The new homeowners will undo a fair chunk of my work. Mallory will consign a fair chunk of my belongings when they pass into her care. In the meantime, however, I am the steward of so many good gifts—tangible and intangible—in this time, and in this place. That’s where I find the good news this week: Whether it matters or not, it matters to me.

For that I am truly thankful.

This post first appeared on Lisa's mainestewards blog and is reprinted with permission.