If you didn’t know, let me tell you. Society is changing. Sometimes fast and sometimes very slow. Take for instance, cars. If you have noticed, most cars look similar, run the same, last about the same length of time and have two things in common that have not changed very much since 1955. The first is the front end steering. It’s pretty well the same. Yes it’s better designed and lasts longer but, in general, it’s the same. The second thing that is the same is, it runs on gasoline. A highly explosive liquid that travels around with you running from the 40-liter tank in the rear through tubes that run just below your seat to an engine that detonates it every millisecond. Are you getting worried yet? But it’s very safe. If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t do it every day and all day.
The other day I took notice of another slow change in our life. We are a society of pack rats. If you count three people, one of you will be a pack rat. What triggered my mind was the commercial I was watching. You see them, in industrial parks and even on land that nothing else could ever be built on. Yes they are those wonderful places called, storage rentals. Right from the get go, don’t get me wrong, I agree with the concept and the many uses’ people put them to but . . . and that’s a big but, there seems to be something more. I once saw a couple parked out in front of one wide-open door, sitting in two easy chairs, reading old magazines????
So let’s go down memory lane. My brother and I loved to go to our grandparents home on Stinson Crt. here in Hamilton. On occasion we would be allowed the opportunity to go up the stairs from the second floor to the third. There in the hot dark nether world of the attic we had an adventure. It was full of stuff. And I mean full. It must have been the forerunner of these bins on the side of the road. I remember the first thing I found up there was an old blue Crown Royal velvet bag full of grandpas’ marbles. No, he hadn’t lost his marbles, but in time, after he gave them to us, we lost them. It was always an adventure up there.
Next came the basements. My parents didn’t have an attic so they used their basement for the depository of all their cast offs, and wonderful items of the past now replaced by the “New fan dangled stuff. Again we played down there, whet through boxes and discovered many items long lost or forgotten. Then came the rec-room. No attic, no basement, now what? You know where this is going. Storage has migrated to, as your car sits in the drive, the one that runs of gas, and no longer fits, that big box sticking out the front of your house.
So, off we go with our friend’s pick up loaded with stuff to store it in one of these wonderfully prices, first months free storage units. These things are great. I used one once. We were moving from one place to another but not on the same day so we stored everything we owned in a nine by twelve-unit. Talk about simplifying your life! It was great. Then we moved into the house, emptied the unit and began enjoying the simple life . . . And again the cycle began. The attic, basement, garage and now, if we had to we would need ten of those bins to . . . I think you get the picture.
Society has changed and we still gather so many things around us, We fill our lives in an attempt to seek fulfillment and peace. In so doing we have replaced the two most important things in our life, people and God with things that not only don’t matter, but will be either thrown out or sold when we are gone. Our children don’t need our stuff. They need us. God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, so He doesn’t need us, He only wants us to get to know Him and He us.
Society can change all it wants, but we all need each other. Society may move forward, but God is the same, yesterday, today and forever. Have you left your stuff and worked on each of these lately?
Something to think about.
Rob