Cameo 1 – Imagine me scrambling around to find more space in our loft. My summer has been spent sorting Stuff. I wasn’t created to spend my time doing this (Ref 1) yet our whole Western way of life is geared to consuming. Our individual identity depends on it. The whole economy, and other people’s livelihoods, depend on it.
Cameo 2 – “Another two boxes. That box is for Martin and his family. The other will be good for the charity shop…”
My sister and I have spent many days emptying my mother’s house ready for sale, a challenging task. But the positive aspect has been how few of my parents’ purchases of clothing and furniture were cheap or shoddy. They paid twice as much for items that lasted three times as long, bought from reputable companies who paid their workers a decent wage.
Cameo 3 – I gaze at the appealing face of Yohan, an elderly church leader from India. “Look around you at the billions who need our help. Many of these are starving; others still wait to hear the good news of Jesus. Can’t you in the West put aside your obsession with all your stuff?”
Our vicar Michelle placed a prayer composed by Rev. Jonathan Swales in our newsletter last Sunday. Here are two extracts:
We renounce the unholy trinity of unrestrained Capitalism, Consumerism and Individualism, which ransacks and pillages the world that you made.
We repent of our collaboration and cooperation with a fast-fashion industry that requires the constant updating of our wardrobes in unsustainable ways.
Touché!
Ref 1: Matthew 6:25-34
johnhearsonwrites.com 
Thank you John. Another good read. So true about stuff. As I look around my little house it is full of what my children call stuff! But for me the majority of the items are memory stirrers.
For example that resin duck/pen holder with the garish coloured balls inside, was a gift from India from an elderly India lady, a patient at the surgery where i worked, who hugged me when my husband died and said ” you are like me now”; referring to my being a widow. The little porcelain Japanese lady was a gift from my mother-in-law one day. I had said I liked it so she said “you’d better have it then.” Sadly a few years later she had a form of dementia & vehemently hated me – blaming me for so much. But I choose to dwell on the good memory that little ornament provokes.
The definition of stuff very much depends on the perspective of who it belongs to I’m sure.
Thank you again John. More please.
😊✍
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Thanks Ann. You’ve highlighted the positive aspect of ‘stuff’, one that’s helped my mum a lot as she tries to adjust to the loss of her home. Linda (neighbour) has a box of ‘stuff’ from which she selects a few objects to take when she visits.
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