True Treasure

By: Taylor Barnes 09

           “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and thieves break in and steal, but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  Matthew 6:19-21

Shoveling waist-high piles of belongings that now were recognizable as little more than black muck, Hope and I both exclaimed: This woman was a packrat!  Books whose damp pages were now black and unreadable, laundry still hanging, stiff with dry mold, crocheted blankets that we used to mop up “TFW” spills – all of these now ruined possessions we shoveled and relegated to the growing mountain of garbage in the front yard. 

           After several hours of work made only a small dent in the heap that filled the room, Hope, through her heavy-duty face mask, said to me, “I want to be a minimalist when I’m older!”  I agreed, and began pondering how I could own the bare minimum to survive so that I would not be vulnerable to losing everything.  Who could look at all of these possessions, once thought valuable enough to be stowed away, now unfit to touch with bare hands, and not realize the truth of what Jesus told us over two millennia ago: “Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth…”?

            When the owner of the house asked the team to look for three possessions of hers (the cross that lay on her husband’s coffin, the Bible that her parents had given her, and a crystal punch platter), the whole team seemed zealous to recover these precious items for the sweet, older lady who spoke to us on speaker phone in her lovely, charming, wonderful southern accent ( J ).  When we called at the end of the day to report to her that we had not only found these items but also her wedding dress, still white enough should she need to wear it for another wedding, I think I was not the only member of the team who was somewhat dismayed by her subdued reaction.  Even though she repeatedly told us “God bless y’all” for the work we were doing, I had expected ecstasy, elation upon hearing of our findings, whereas she instead seemed merely pleased, as though we had told her that reruns of “The Waltons” was now going to be shown on primetime television. 

            Though this response initially disappointed me, I later thought about it in conjunction with what Hope and I had learned that day.  Just as we had realized the impermanency of material objects by shoveling though someone else’s belongings, how much more had this woman, who had literally lost everything that she owned due to one cataclysmic event beyond her control, learned to not esteem the valuables of this world.  Reflecting on her reaction now, I feel encouraged by her – that in the face of the loss of everything she owned, she seemed incredibly strong in her faith and seemed liberated of the weight that material possessions impose.  From this lesson that she passed on to me, I hope that I will learn to be independent of earthly belongings and fully dependent upon God.