Treasures

I watched the black clouds swirling and dangerous moving in over the Mississippi River. The trees, with their lightweight spring buds were flipping and flapping in the whirlwind of confused air.

The television screens were filled with weather maps in bright greens, yellows and reds trying to get our attention. We needed to get into a safe place but then we can’t see the TV weather experts telling us what is happening. (If you have Direct TV, it goes into a spasm when there is even a drop of regular rain.) And then I began to think - Oh, dear. I live in a house with all glass on one side, the river side, across which all these storms leap over from flat Arkansas. How long before hail stones, now as big as tennis balls in our extreme and disastrous weather, crash through the glass windows and ruin all the paintings on the walls and ceramic pieces on the tables in my living room - which had such a gorgeous view. 

Dare I ask God to help? It’s my burden. I shouldn’t have all these things as it is and needed to disperse this excess of art and collectibles which were investments in the beginning and are not insured.  Day in and day out when I walked through my skinny three-story house I said, I don’t need that. I don’t need that either. Sure, art gives us something to look at, laugh at, a memory of a friend, but we don’t need these things to survive. Uruguay has the emotional sea, the beaches one can walk on for miles, the Rambla too if we don’t want to get sand in between our toes. In Memphis, out my windows, flow the river, the ever changing, ever dramatic Mississippi river to look at day and night, like an evolving work of art. In the lot next door there was a giant tree with white bark that blew leaves and cotton puffs across my tiny but sculpted garden.  In other words, possessions that can be objects of theft and pride are not “treasures.” God’s natural beauty should be.

The point of this is, as many of us bemoan now and then, we have too much “stuff.”  What do we do? These are not treasures.  These are vanities, vane things, prideful things, possessions that spill into obsessions, if one allows. I often thought my decorated house entertained better than I did. Visitors laughed, were curious, wanted to know stories, and enjoyed the spirit of the place.  Is this vanity? Vanity of vanities, we read in Ecclesiastes. All is vanity. What, then is the way to treasures?

As I passed through the hall and up steps I’d say, wouldn’t a better treasure be a donation to the Civil Rights Museum or the JIFF program for juvenile delinquents, or the Lives Worth Living program at church for prostitutes, or help start prison programs to save youth in 201 Poplar? Wouldn’t that make a difference in somebody’s life?  I’ve seen so much pain that I cannot enjoy the possessions around me. The challenge is for us to use what we have to change the conditions of the needy, the hungry, the lonely, the abused and confused. Can we work for treasures to be stored in heaven, where no thief can rob nor moth destroy? Then we won’t have to worry about loss or decay or theft or families fighting over who gets what when Mother or Grandmother die.

Where out treasures are, there is our heart. Right now, in heaven, resides almost everyone who has taken care of me in my life. I hope they watch over me. I feel they do.  I wrote a novel South of Everything about some of these amazing, loving people who taught me about faith. These are my treasures. These are the people God put in our lives. Treasures can also be getting a smile out of an abused child or a hug from a gang member with gold teeth or dreads who thinks adults are not trust-worthy but decides maybe you are. It’s following Gods push and pull into the unknown.

We cannot be afraid to take a chance on ignored, unpopular, violent people. With his love glove on, God sends us to rescue all types over and over. A true treasure for us then is to find out that something we said, or did made a difference in someone’s life. That’s a leap forward. Sometime a simple prayer at the right time, a hug, a touch on the shoulder, a cup of water, a ham and cheese sandwich can make a difference in the life of the lonely, the abandoned and abused. If we just stop…. listen….hear… If we just celebrate the soul, the heart, the mind in each other.   If we switch on the lights in someone’s soul so he or she can sing and shine, isn’t that seeking the things that are above where Christ resides? 

Paul tells us we all need to get out of the muck of anger, cussing, slander, and a whole list of earthly desires and activities. These aren’t heavenly things, nor needed as crutches. We can refresh ourselves by paring down our tempers, our pride, our collections of whatever obsesses us. I know for sure that Abraham could not have hauled around a ton of possessions when he went where God sent him. He was ready. He lived in transportable tents. He didn’t have to load around a washing machine, a refrigerator, a TV, or a huge bed. Really, it’s not so bad napping in a hammock under the trees if there aren’t any mosquitos. And think of women with their bags and drawers full of make-up.  Do we need so much on the road? Cleopatra must have been hard to transport, to move in a moment.  She’d have been so busy packing up she might not have heard the knocking at the door.

Singer Carol King says we need to wake up with a smile on our face each morning. Then we are in the right mood to get to work and set up that incorruptible bank account in heaven’s safe where robbers and embezzlers cannot get near our treasures. The Bible says the place where our treasures lie, is the place we most want to be, and we will get there in the end.  Amen.

 ~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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