Enough 2

When my mom grew weary of her two litle girls quarreling over whose slice of pie or bowl of ice cream was biggest, she instituted this practice: one of us did the dividing, and the other got the first pick. This instantly and almost magically evened out the size of the pies.

Wanting some-more-most is seated deep in the human psyche, as are good-better-best, for example, and new-newer-beta. They're all just variations on I-me-mine (in some traditions that's called original sin). Our capitalist economy depends on this. How will corporations get all their capital if we don't spend all of ours buying their stuff?

So? What's wrong with that? For the corporation, nothing. The system works. But for us? We for whom the gaping maw waits all wide and toothy?

Here's what Rob Bell says, in his book Love Wins:

There is nothing wrong with possessions; it's just that they have value to us only when we use them, engage them, and enjoy them. They're nouns that mean something only in conjunction with a verb. That's why wealth is so dangerous: if you're not careful, you can easily end up with a garage full of nouns.

"Garage full of nouns". Ha! I don't even have a garage! O most virtuous me!

But might I have a closet full of nouns? You bet. If I moved to a smaller place and put some of my things in storage, I'd have a storeroom full of nouns. Nouns plus one heart, because Jesus said "where your treasure is, there your heart will be also", and I have yet to see empirical proof to the contrary.

Letting go is difficult. We trust what we hold in our hands. We find it hard to even identify that which holds us.

( Here's George Harrison's haunting I Me Mine. Embedding was disabled. Perfect, yes?)