We have a St. Vincent De Paul Society collection box at the back of our church parking lot. I’ve noticed that every day I am at the church, the bin is full to over-flowing, and there are usually items piled in front.
Even at the height of COVID, when we were all presumably shopping less, and staying home more, every time I visited the church, the bin was full. This was a bit of an issue for a short while, when the re-sale stores were not able to open, and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, Goodwill, and Value Village were all gathering more donated goods than they could process and were running out of storage room.
I think the community-based Full Circle Thrift Store in Harrow had similiar issues, when they could not be open to sell the goods that kept appearing in their loading area.
We live in a culture with a lot of stuff. I know that we have more in our closets, garage, and backyard sheds, than we can use, or actually need. We were amongst the COVID cleaners, who used the lockdown time to sort, order, and dispose of many things. There is a lot more we could live without.
The spiritual practice suggested in today’s Good Courage devotion was to “set a goal that for the next few weeks, you’re going to set aside one item that offers you very little. Maybe it’ll be a book on the shelf that you’re likely to never read, a habit that offers no joy, or a grudge that holds you captive.”
If you listen carefully, you might hear Lyle Lovett and John Prine backing up Delbert McCLinton on this rocking country song. The track also has some very fine Hammond organ.
Darrow Woods: Writer of Things 