Lent Day 30: Divestment

Divest:
 to dispossess of property, to strip away, rid, free 

(paraphrased from the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary)

From today's "Simple Abundance" calendar:

Once you search within for your own special gifts of Spirit, your material desires diminish.  

Your soul divests for you rather than your conscious mind.  

I had to look up "divest", although once I read the meaning, my mind thought of various sentences I've read in books, usually when someone gets something taken away from them, stripped.  This word used in a meditational thought seems more gentle, supporting the way to Wholeness.

I've been reading (and listening) to various books on the Tao Te Ching.  One of them is The Tao of an Uncluttered Life by Karen Hicks.  In the intro she speaks of the different seasons of our lives, how when we're young, very often we're all about the acquisitions.  As we move into our middle and older years, we tend to be drawn to getting rid of the stuff we worked so hard to accumulate.  

Moving out of the house which held all of my possessions has been an interesting experience.  I have been discovering which things mean the most to me.  (Please note I am talking about "things", not people or the animals. Leaving them behind has cracked my heart.)  When I was getting ready to move out, I obsessed over my books, taking them down to the garage, sorting and labeling boxes (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children's), with *'s marking the boxes with the most dear to me.  Part of me wondered about this focused energy with the books, the majority of which are self-improvement.  I guess that answers my question.  They represent(ed) my quest for peace, wholeness and wisdom. The books I've owned since childhood invoked strong emotions in me.  I deliberately did my best to get rid of the ones which brought up pain and sadness.  (A beautifully illustrated copy of Alice in Wonderland was one of the books which I let go.  There is not one happy character in this book and the pictures had haunted me since I received it as a gift when I was about 8.)  There are still some books left behind at the house.  I'll bring them over eventually.  I guess I'm still claiming my spot there with them.  (Also, I have run out of bookcase space here.  If anyone local has a two-shelf bookcase they don't need, let me know.)

I have my eye on some of the art that still hangs there.  I am very much into the paintings that were done by people I know or local artists.  I wonder what I'll do about the boxes in the garage that hold high school memories like the one full of prom dresses or the ones with cards and ribbons.  Do I really want to store things that I'll look at once a decade?  Maybe the resident racoon has gotten into them and will save me the struggle of decision.

I like things to mean something, not just be pretty.  I know that meaning is something I assign to it.  I long ago learned that giving up something gifted to me doesn't mean I am rejecting the person who gave it.  E used to tease me because when Jake was a baby and we'd be visiting with friends or family, if they had gotten him an outfit, I'd be sure to dress him in it to show that I was appreciative. It means something when someone gives something to me.  They thought of me and put forth energy and effort.  Things evoke emotions.  Pictures even more so.  What do people do with family pictures after the family has broken up?  We're not so angry that we tore them up or burned them.  Will Jake want them when he grows up?  He's not very sentimental.  Quite a few of them are in a box in the band room.  I guess the decisions will come to us in time.

I look across the room to the table that has been cluttered since the December holidays.  Why haven't I taken care of this mess?  I brought a file box and folders home . . . and there they sit, the papers who want to be organized inside are scattered around.  What am I avoiding?  I do know myself well enough to know that if I have company over on Saturday, which was a discussion among myself and some friends last night, I'll clean that area up in a hurry.  But why don't I just do it for myself?

3/4 of my room looks great.  I make my bed daily, don't leave clothes lying around and am fantasizing about putting my books in alpha order.  It's that last 1/4 that is drawing too much of my energy away from flow.  I don't need a lot more in this room.  I had turned down E's offer of a tv and dvd player as I appreciated not having the distraction or "stuff".  If I wanted to watch a movie up here I could do it on my laptop.  But I've reconsidered as having a space in here for Jake to veg out seems like a good way to entice him over more often.  This is where I live now and if some more "stuff" paves a smoother way between me and my son, I will happily have a little more. 

Thanks for listening.