“… Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all.” Ecclesiastes 12:12-13

The Pile

I took trips down memory lane the past two Saturdays. Not just garden-variety memories produced by old photos, though those are important. These memories were the magazine articles and news clippings and podcast transcripts I’ve saved in a pile on my office desk. These were the post-it notes of important thoughts, and sermon notes from church, and retreat note pages. These were the thought-provoking devotionals I’d printed out, and the beginnings of my memoirs.

These were memories of things I had wanted—needed—to think over these past couple of years. These were deep thoughts that took time, ideas that could change a person. I’d read them quickly before, and sometimes highlighted a few things, but had been too busy to meditate on them as I came across them initially, so I put them in a pile. The pile began to lean, and for a few weeks I’ve looked at it warily each day, willing it to stay upright.

To tackle the pile meant hours and hours of re-reading these big thoughts, reconnecting with what drew me to them in the first place, remembering what I never wanted to forget. I’m not a hoarder—really! It’s just this one pile.

This process speaks to me of having been too busy. My mom, an artist, always told me every painting needs a place for the eyes to rest. I have also noticed this when reading books—some books don’t have a good margin around the words, or they don’t have a good space between the lines. It makes me tired, somehow, to read them. I notice that when I sit on my porch, my favorite thing to gaze upon is the empty expanse of blue sky. Ah, what a relief.

I think this is God’s word to me in this process of dismantling my pile: if I haven’t allowed some margins, some white space in my life, some place to rest and think through what has come my way, then it’s just a jumble, a falling-over accumulation without any clear purpose. When it gets like this, nothing stays with me, nothing stands out. It’s all the same. It’s just in the stack, just one of many. None of my thoughts are important enough to really matter—to transform flesh-me into spiritual-me, sinner-me into holy-me.

So I’m sorting and prioritizing, re-reading and tossing and filing. I’m slowing down to allow margins for contemplation. As I look through things I’ve saved, I see patterns emerging of who I’ve been and who I’m becoming. I can see that what my life has been full of hasn’t necessarily remained important to me. Those things I was too busy to think about, I am now thinking about, allowing them to imbed in my heart, revealing things that God knows, hidden from me until now.

“Father, may unimportant things fade, and may You be pre-eminent in our lives. Amen.”