Rivertown United Reformed Church

Dear Friends

Are you a hoarder or are you ruthless in throwing things away? Do you keep things just in case they might be useful at a later date or do you throw things away even though you know there is a risk that they might be needed in the future? Do you hold on to things because of sentimentality or do you see things merely as inanimate objects?

We live in a throw-away society today, much different from the way things were 50 or more years ago. Then items for the home were expected to last for many years and the purchase of new furniture such as a dining table and chairs or a sofa would be seen as an investment that would stay with the purchaser possibly for the rest of their lives. Then, TV sets were only just beginning to be commonplace and few homes had refrigerators or washing machines. Today, most homes have a wide range of domestic appliances and many have personal computers and other electronic paraphernalia. With the rapid change in technology we have experienced over the past few years, we now no longer buy items to last for a long time but buy them in the knowledge that when they wear out or break down we will be able to replace them with the latest version which is much improved on the “old” model we had.

All of this has led us to the problem of disposing of our old items and this can create difficulties for some of us. The difficulty is not necessarily that of how to dispose of an item because there are many options for disposal today depending on what is being disposed of. Gone are the days of the “rag and bone” man and thankfully you very rarely see a “jumble sale” advertised these days. Today bulky items can be taken away by the local council or dropped off at a skip-site. Unwanted items of clothing are collected from your front door by charities or can be taken to one of the many charity shops that now seem to dominate our high streets. Instead of giving items away, the more adventurous can even make money on their unwanted items by selling them, maybe at a car boot sale or by e-Bay. So there are plenty of methods of disposal but the difficulty for some remains that of letting go.

There will, of course, always be items of such sentimental value to us that there will be an overwhelming case for keeping hold of them. But that brings us back to the question of whether we are hoarders or ruthless in disposing of things. Because hoarding brings with it a number of problems. First, it almost inevitably produces clutter and untidiness. This then results in it being hard to find the things that are important.

The message of redemption, the cancelling of our wrong-doings, is an important one for us as we try to “unclutter” our lives because it is not just objects that we tend to hoard. We can hoard memories of wrongs done to us by others and we can allow our guilt of wrong-doings we have committed to gnaw away and damage ourselves. But we have been told and we should accept with grace that if we repent our sins we are forgiven. We are also told that we should show forgiveness to others. If only we were prepared to accept these words of assurance and instruction more readily – then our lives really would become uncluttered and we would have more time and energy to worship God and praise Him for all the gifts that we have had.

With best wishes to you all

Ray Brown

PS – I am a “hoarder” by nature but I’m working at, prompted by Linda who can be quite ruthless at disposing of things! My hoarding has resulted in some good results, however, including the disposal on e-Bay of some football programmes I had kept from the 1960’s which I was able to sell for more than £130.