Astrid’s family asked her what she wanted for her birthday. She replied that she wanted a rake to use on her compost heap. The family gave her a fancy apron which she stored in the cedar chest along with the other fancy aprons they had given her over the years.

I could write about the human inclination to give gifts that the recipient doesn’t want, but I’m more interested in the rake. A rake is a very practical tool. It’s great for removing dead thatch from a lawn or piling up leaves. Tools have a value, but are they religiously valuable? It wouldn’t seem so on the surface, but this is what the Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 31 instructs the cellarer of a monastery: “Let him regard all the tools of the monastery . . . as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar.”  Is that an over-the-top attitude? I don’t think so.

There is a goodness in the things of this world. This creation is a gift from God. But the created things have to be used for their purpose, not just possessed. Thomas Merton writes: “The love, the joy which we can and indeed must take in created things, depends entirely on our detachment. As soon as we take them to ourselves, appropriate them, hug them to our hearts, we have stolen them from God.”*

I have accumulated so many things over the years and wonder why it is so hard to learn this spiritual lesson. May your possessions be useful to you with out possessing you.

Read Matthew Psalm 33:1-4 and remember: God loves YOU unconditionally.

Wayne

*The Silent Life, p. 27