The Golden Age

A very thought provoking blog entry from Lee Modesitt this morning on making a living as an artist or writer. I'm still pondering it a bit, but I think, sadly, that what he is saying is that THIS (today, now, this moment) is the "golden age". Take a look at http://www.lemodesittjr.com/blogs/blog/index.html

Ecclesiastes 3:5

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together.

Seems like most of us spend our lives gathering things together - and certainly not thinking of them as stones. But as I get older the "things" in my life become heavier and heavier and perhaps it is time to realize that many of them are indeed stones that need to be cast away.

I've spent a lot of this year giving things away. So far, mostly things that I didn't really want to keep but thought I either ought to want (like books) or ought to keep (like things given me by my mother-in-law). The books are the most difficult as I've been collecting them for more than 40 years - and still have most of the ones that I had back when I graduated from high school in '68.

For Lent each year for the last five or so I have chosen a bookcase to decimate - in the literal sense. But that didn't seem to be getting me far enough, and this spring I decided that I wanted a living room back that was not weighted down by a solid 20 foot wall of six foot high bookcases. This was the non-fiction section of our collection, and getting it down to two bookcases was quite a task. Many people who came by over the spring months went through the stacks of giveaway books and took some away. I found myself wondering if those books would end up, as they had with me, unread for years and taking up shelf room. I think my biggest sense of freedom was giving away three shelves of theology to my church library. The books are still there if I want to re-read them, other people can read them, and I get a nice tax deduction!

But it's not just books. I'm loaded down with blenders, and waffle irons, and crock pots. Do I really want to keep the milkshake machine with the lost metal cup? It has some good memories, yes, but honestly, do I really want that in my cupboard? And papers. I keep thinking someday some graduate student will earn fame analyzing the history of an American woman in the 20th century. Or that my grand-daughters and great-grand-daughters will want to see what my life was like in the sixties and seventies (but they better wait until they are 21, some of it's not for kids). But I can see that the day is coming when these things, too, may become stones. What's the difference between a stone and an heirloom - ah, there's the rub!

So for the moment, I'm giving things away. Come on over. See something you like? Ask if it's available. I might say no, but then again, I might say yes.