“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)
I realize my last posting was mostly happy, cheery, reflective, and focusing on the joys of Thanksgiving week. This one will seem like the exact opposite- and in a way, it is. Since posting that, I received an e-mail from a very close friend of mine who lives in the Midwest. I don’t want to use his real name so I’ll call him “Nate”. Nate is in his late fifties. He is struggling with a lot of the kind of issues people in their late fifties struggle with. He has some health issues. Right now he’s on leave from his job due to his health. When he is working regularly, he has a number of frustrations and problems on his job. He has a daughter in high school and a daughter in college, and like most good parents, he worries about them. He has a very bright and successful wife. He’s very proud of her, but I think sometimes her success has made him feel inferior. Nate’s greatest concern, however, is his elderly parents who live several hundred miles from him.
In order to cover all the issues regarding his parents, I’d really have to write three long blog postings. In Nate’s e-mail that I received yesterday, he wrote about his parents’ problem of HOARDING. This is at least the 5th time Nate has written about that issue. Nate’s parents’ house is filled with wall to wall junk. Nate and his brother are depressed, frustrated, and embarrassed about this. Nate’s Mom was taken ill some months ago and the ambulance crew had a terrible time trying to get her out of the house with all of the junk.
I very much empathize with Nate. My own parents were exactly the same way. In fact, the problem of elderly people and their homes filled with junk was actually discussed a few weeks ago on Boston’s popular affairs show, “Greater Boston”. I actually e-mailed the show’s host (or is it “hostess”?) Emily Rooney about what my sister and I went through. My parents each died in the summer of 2000. Much of their Canton home was filled with wall to wall stuff, and the house was in disrepair. My sister has officially bought the house and made it her home. Over the seven years, we’ve worked piecemeal at clearing out the (mostly) junk. There were three rooms that were ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO ENTER the day my mother died in August of 2000. They were just FILLED with anything and everything you could possibly think of. The cellar was not quite as bad but was about half filled with junk. The house was built in 1958. In 1971, my father had a separate two-car garage with a full-sized room built on the property, and he proceeded to begin filling IT up with junk. Back in the early 1960s when my parents were around 40 and the hoarding was in its early stages, at least you could navigate your way around the place and it didn’t look horrible, but the problem was that EVERY year for almost forty years, lots and lots of stuff was added, and very little was disposed of.
Today, two-thirds of the stuff that was at my parents’ house in 2000 is gone...it’s either been sold, given away, thrown out, or in some cases, I’ve taken a few items I wanted. After seven years, there is still another third to go. Realistically, it will take another 2-3 years to finish the job. My sister has also done a number of repairs and improvements to the house.
Some of the members of my own household tend to be pack rats, so that’s created a tension of its own, but I’m determined to never let things get the way they did in Canton! Out there in the Midwest, Nate and his brother are STRESSED! Their parents are around 80. Within a few years, they will either be dead or in nursing homes. They will have the immense burden of cleaning and clearing out the house. As I said, I can empathize.
Today, I gave Nate the above verse.... the one about “you cannot serve God and mammon”. Mammon is essentially MATERIALISTIC JUNK. Hoarding (to the degree that my parents, and Nate’s parents, and a retired Professor who used to attend our church hoarded) is truly a SPIRITUAL PROBLEM. That junk becomes an idol...a god. (And, BOY, what a LOUSY God!!) Leaving a place full of junk for someone else to clean out is, well, A SIN!
I drive my immediate family crazy because I’m a “thrower outer”. I usually don’t save sentimental items. I really don’t have a lot of photos of me from before 1980, because I threw a lot of them out. I don’t have a lot of stuff (other than school yearbooks) from before 1980 because I threw it out. I am kind of extreme about throwing stuff out, and so is my sister. When you hear our story, I think you can understand WHY.
The bumper sticker says, “He who dies with the most toys WINS.” For MANY reasons I do not believe that. Now, please don’t misunderstand- I don’t aspire to poverty. Frankly, I like to eat well. I like to eat in nice restaurants. I enjoy comfortable furniture. I like my personal library. As minister’s libraries go, it’s actually SMALL. I could probably fit all of it in 10 large cardboard boxes. I do like to have a few nice suits, a few casual shirts, a few pairs of jeans, and a few pairs of shoes and sneakers. I would like to be able to travel all over North America and not worry about the expenses. BUT as far as owning all kinds of real estate and all kinds of junk beyond what I’ve just written about...I have NO desire to. This may sound crazy, but there is a tremendous freedom in not being attached to stuff.
If you have a house full of junk and you REALLY want to FIX that problem (and I hope you do), there IS a way to do it. My sister and I learned, IT TAKES TIME. Picture an extra-large green trash bag (the 39-ounce kind). You HAVE to get rid of the equivalent of at least one extra-large green trash bag worth of stuff EVERY week....ABOVE AND BEYOND YOUR REGULAR TRASH. You have to do that “like clockwork”. Now, in Canton, (admittedly) there were weeks that we got rid of the equivalent of TEN of those trash bags of stuff a week, but then we might not have done anything for a few weeks. Anyway, over the 7 years, we have gotten rid of the equivalent of over 350 extra-large green trash bags full of stuff. In the early days, it was SO discouraging. We’d work at it and work at it, and it would look like we did nothing. TODAY, seven years later, we can really see the difference and there is a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
As far as the stuff you DO keep permanently, “a place for everything and everything in it’s place” is a great motto, but that’s a topic for another posting.
If this piece made you feel uncomfortable, GOOD! If Nate’s parents and my parents had recognized their hoarding problems decades ago and done something about it, it would have saved lots of stress and heartache for their children
I realize my last posting was mostly happy, cheery, reflective, and focusing on the joys of Thanksgiving week. This one will seem like the exact opposite- and in a way, it is. Since posting that, I received an e-mail from a very close friend of mine who lives in the Midwest. I don’t want to use his real name so I’ll call him “Nate”. Nate is in his late fifties. He is struggling with a lot of the kind of issues people in their late fifties struggle with. He has some health issues. Right now he’s on leave from his job due to his health. When he is working regularly, he has a number of frustrations and problems on his job. He has a daughter in high school and a daughter in college, and like most good parents, he worries about them. He has a very bright and successful wife. He’s very proud of her, but I think sometimes her success has made him feel inferior. Nate’s greatest concern, however, is his elderly parents who live several hundred miles from him.
In order to cover all the issues regarding his parents, I’d really have to write three long blog postings. In Nate’s e-mail that I received yesterday, he wrote about his parents’ problem of HOARDING. This is at least the 5th time Nate has written about that issue. Nate’s parents’ house is filled with wall to wall junk. Nate and his brother are depressed, frustrated, and embarrassed about this. Nate’s Mom was taken ill some months ago and the ambulance crew had a terrible time trying to get her out of the house with all of the junk.
I very much empathize with Nate. My own parents were exactly the same way. In fact, the problem of elderly people and their homes filled with junk was actually discussed a few weeks ago on Boston’s popular affairs show, “Greater Boston”. I actually e-mailed the show’s host (or is it “hostess”?) Emily Rooney about what my sister and I went through. My parents each died in the summer of 2000. Much of their Canton home was filled with wall to wall stuff, and the house was in disrepair. My sister has officially bought the house and made it her home. Over the seven years, we’ve worked piecemeal at clearing out the (mostly) junk. There were three rooms that were ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO ENTER the day my mother died in August of 2000. They were just FILLED with anything and everything you could possibly think of. The cellar was not quite as bad but was about half filled with junk. The house was built in 1958. In 1971, my father had a separate two-car garage with a full-sized room built on the property, and he proceeded to begin filling IT up with junk. Back in the early 1960s when my parents were around 40 and the hoarding was in its early stages, at least you could navigate your way around the place and it didn’t look horrible, but the problem was that EVERY year for almost forty years, lots and lots of stuff was added, and very little was disposed of.
Today, two-thirds of the stuff that was at my parents’ house in 2000 is gone...it’s either been sold, given away, thrown out, or in some cases, I’ve taken a few items I wanted. After seven years, there is still another third to go. Realistically, it will take another 2-3 years to finish the job. My sister has also done a number of repairs and improvements to the house.
Some of the members of my own household tend to be pack rats, so that’s created a tension of its own, but I’m determined to never let things get the way they did in Canton! Out there in the Midwest, Nate and his brother are STRESSED! Their parents are around 80. Within a few years, they will either be dead or in nursing homes. They will have the immense burden of cleaning and clearing out the house. As I said, I can empathize.
Today, I gave Nate the above verse.... the one about “you cannot serve God and mammon”. Mammon is essentially MATERIALISTIC JUNK. Hoarding (to the degree that my parents, and Nate’s parents, and a retired Professor who used to attend our church hoarded) is truly a SPIRITUAL PROBLEM. That junk becomes an idol...a god. (And, BOY, what a LOUSY God!!) Leaving a place full of junk for someone else to clean out is, well, A SIN!
I drive my immediate family crazy because I’m a “thrower outer”. I usually don’t save sentimental items. I really don’t have a lot of photos of me from before 1980, because I threw a lot of them out. I don’t have a lot of stuff (other than school yearbooks) from before 1980 because I threw it out. I am kind of extreme about throwing stuff out, and so is my sister. When you hear our story, I think you can understand WHY.
The bumper sticker says, “He who dies with the most toys WINS.” For MANY reasons I do not believe that. Now, please don’t misunderstand- I don’t aspire to poverty. Frankly, I like to eat well. I like to eat in nice restaurants. I enjoy comfortable furniture. I like my personal library. As minister’s libraries go, it’s actually SMALL. I could probably fit all of it in 10 large cardboard boxes. I do like to have a few nice suits, a few casual shirts, a few pairs of jeans, and a few pairs of shoes and sneakers. I would like to be able to travel all over North America and not worry about the expenses. BUT as far as owning all kinds of real estate and all kinds of junk beyond what I’ve just written about...I have NO desire to. This may sound crazy, but there is a tremendous freedom in not being attached to stuff.
If you have a house full of junk and you REALLY want to FIX that problem (and I hope you do), there IS a way to do it. My sister and I learned, IT TAKES TIME. Picture an extra-large green trash bag (the 39-ounce kind). You HAVE to get rid of the equivalent of at least one extra-large green trash bag worth of stuff EVERY week....ABOVE AND BEYOND YOUR REGULAR TRASH. You have to do that “like clockwork”. Now, in Canton, (admittedly) there were weeks that we got rid of the equivalent of TEN of those trash bags of stuff a week, but then we might not have done anything for a few weeks. Anyway, over the 7 years, we have gotten rid of the equivalent of over 350 extra-large green trash bags full of stuff. In the early days, it was SO discouraging. We’d work at it and work at it, and it would look like we did nothing. TODAY, seven years later, we can really see the difference and there is a tremendous sense of accomplishment.
As far as the stuff you DO keep permanently, “a place for everything and everything in it’s place” is a great motto, but that’s a topic for another posting.
If this piece made you feel uncomfortable, GOOD! If Nate’s parents and my parents had recognized their hoarding problems decades ago and done something about it, it would have saved lots of stress and heartache for their children
1 comment:
i think it's funny that you have more shoes than me.
i don't think you should hoard everything, but sometimes you throw out important stuff that you can't get back... it should be a happy medium... if you have so much stuff you can't find something for a year... that's not good... and if you find something you haven't seen in 10 years and you never missed it durring that time, chances are you never will so just get rid of it...
hope our house never gets that bad... i'd get you a dumpster for christmas, but i'm scared of the power it would give you...
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