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Read the fourth article about possessions

Congregation of Holy Cross

Art/Don Nelson

It always amazes me how much stuff the men of Morrissey Hall at Notre Dame pack into their rooms at the start of every school year. They have small quarters with limited closet and shelf space. Yet they manage to carve out a bit more here and a bit more there in a way that would make the designers of Navy warships envious. They add to their already impressive accumulation over the course of the year, and when they move out in the spring the building utters a nearly audible sigh of relief.

When I look about my room, pangs of guilt hit me. I have more space than the students; I also have a vow of religious poverty. That last item should make a great deal of difference. As I slowly grow more mature in my life as a religious, this vow takes on greater significance for me as well as urgency.

Two years ago I had to move. This helped. Lots of stuff given away or thrown out. Lots more left to go. I get into these "evangelical" moods on occasion and feel the desire to fill large plastic garbage bags with remains of my over-acquisitive self. Stepping behind the Architecture Building on the Notre Dame campus and leaving them in the dumpster presents me an easy way to confess and receive absolution from the final repository of our earthly things. Shaking the desire to acquire, however, will take time. Since early childhood I have collected and saved things. Did you ever notice that it takes most of a lifetime to let go of the habits you have spent most of a lifetime developing?

Often I wonder: Do I really possess my things or do they possess me? Have I defined myself by the actions I have taken, the positions I have defended and the people with whom I associate, or do I define myself by what I have, what I like? An outsider looking through my closets, drawers and shelves might think the room occupied by a religious cowboy with strong interests in football, boxing and hockey. Most of my clothing and many of my books reflect these abiding long time, interests. The cowboy hats and the genuine coonskin cap a la Davy Crockett ice the cake. But there is much more to me than that, I hope.

Other than the computer and printer, TV, stereo, compact discs -- the "hardware" I need to do my work and to relax -- I do not need much of anything else. But I hold on to lots of things for the same reasons most people do. I might need them down the road. So, there they sit on the floor in the back of a closet, in the odd-shaped cupboard above the refrigerator or on upper shelves where we keep things out of the way.

Oddly enough, taking the vow of poverty might be part of the reason I keep many things. Told not to waste from the first day of initial formation and all through seminary training, youthful exuberance does not seek balance. This carries over into the active life. My first 12 years as a priest, I taught in high schools that provided little in the way of such luxuries as basic instructional materials. Anything I found or made for classroom purposes I kept and used from year to year, moving it with me from place to place. Like Jacob Marley bedecked with his strongboxes and chains clinking and clanging, I huffed and puffed through school hallways carrying boxes of teaching materials.

I have not taught remedial 9th grade English for 10 years but still have the materials to do so. Lou Holtz left campus almost 3 years ago, but posters and placards bearing his image and likeness are strewn about my closet. I have not fished in years, even though an ultralight rig rests dust free in its case under my bed waiting for the free time that would allow its use. Am I that much different from anyone?

I applaud, a bit, environmentalists who point out the dangers of open-pit mining, deforestation and the pollution of our lakes and streams. One blight on our landscape, however, is not receiving the attention it deserves. Those self-storage areas that have taken over street corners and strip malls in cities and suburbs are as dangerous as any chainsaw or pollutant to our environment. Imagine! People now have to pay to store things they do not use. Talk about a waste of resources. We obtain too many things that we do not need and we keep them for a much longer time than we should.

When I first started to teach, one of the older priests at the school gave me some good advice about living a balanced life when dealing with possessions. He suggested that each time I got a shirt or a sweater, I should get rid of a shirt or a sweater. "Don't let stuff accumulate," he said. "As for books," he added, eyeing all the ones I brought back from graduate school, "if you haven't looked at them in three years, you don't need them." Good, practical advice. Of course, like most people on the receiving end of good admonitions I follow them not all that frequently.

I am getting better. Helping two sets of friends move last summer reminded me of how stuff can be burdensome. So again I cleared out things that will never see real use again.

There are, however, those things I keep because of the memories they evoke. These items certainly have contributed to my development as a person. When I see them, dust them, move them, I recall the person, place, moment and mood in which they were given and received. A certain amount of force would be required to pop these things out of my hands. A lot of letting go on my part. Sure I could do it and it would not bother me much . . . after a while. These are the things that relate to people and relationships both long-standing and newly forged. These are what I wish to have and to hold.

"To have and to hold from this day forward until death do you part?" The question refers, of course, to a man and woman having and holding each other in that wonderful relationship of marriage. By my own calling and choice that particular relationship is not for me. But other wonderful relationships with many people, male and female, married and single, are open to me. From my family to the next student I come upon walking across campus to a Notre Dame graduate I meet at an alumni gathering, I feel enriched and energized by such encounters. I cherish the moments.

People are much more important to me than my accumulation of material things. My memory collection of laughs shared or tears shed with friends I value much more than my collection of college sweatshirts or books on the American West. The sweatshirts and books give me some satisfaction but do not offer the long-lasting and satisfying pleasure of shared human interaction or the memories of those interactions.

As a vowed religious I know that I need to place into my heart more of the memories and less of the objects. I need to clear the shelves, closets and cupboards of my room and restock the heart, soul and mind of my person. I need to do that for me, but more importantly I need to do it for the sake of the Kingdom. To be unencumbered for the purpose of following Jesus more closely is my ultimate goal. To be free to go where and when my provincial superior would ask me is important. I cannot do that with eagerness or energy when I have to worry about moving my stuff.

I no longer wonder why Jesus told his disciples to go out on their mission with only a walking staff and the shoes on their feet. Jesus gave them all they needed because the message he placed deep inside them is key, not the externals they brought. What has become more and more apparent to me is that I need to trust more. The early instruction I received in religious life about not wasting things is true. But what I have been wasting is God's trust and faith in me, not the wasting of community goods and resources. With a growing awareness and assurance of that trust and faith inside me, I know that I need less and less of the stuff outside me. Yes, I will need creature comforts and such along the way, for spartan is not the word to describe my attitude toward life: neither for that matter is sybarite nor hedonist.

About the only thing I remember from my freshman geology course at Notre Dame is Professor Archie MacAlpin telling us that the earth is constantly seeking equilibrium. That is why mountains fall and valleys are filled. We humans are no different. Scripturally made of the very earth upon which we walk, we need balance as well. Too much or too little of anything does not do us much good. I see more and more, however, that what I need is what only God can give. To that end I strive. I need to learn a bit more about not letting the other stuff get in my way.

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