The nature of stuff

I had a conversation this week with the local autobody repairman.
Because of the deer that ran into my van, we’ve gotten to know one
another a bit. He seems to be a good-hearted man; kind beyond the
bounds of what would be required to be socially adequate in commercial
exchanges. He asked how we were doing as a family after our house
fire. Kind of him…

In the course of that conversation, his philosophical side showed up.
It’s come up before, when he had to absorb the cost of a work error by
one of his guys, at which time he commented, “Well, you have to take
the bad with the good”. True enough. But how you take it can range
from outrage to resignation. Not sure exactly where kindness or
gentleness fall on that continuum, but they seem to be in there
somewhere.  Today, his reflective side was revealed in his comment on
the material losses of the fire, about which he said, “Well, we can’t
take nothin’ with us when go…”.

Once again, true enough. But it did make me think that how we view the
nature of the stuff around us as well as the nature of life
here-after, makes a huge difference to how we live here and now. So
this week we will continue our exploration of the some of the themes
from the first chapters of “the big story”, looking for connections
between that story and the one we live in every day.

We’ll see you at 10:30 Sunday. Coffee will  be on…

Peace,

Tim