I’ve struggled with discarding their high school diplomas, old love letters and envelopes full of photo negatives. However, the reality is that their treasures hold no sentiment or value for me, or for other family members.
Jesus said, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matt 6:20-21 NIV)
My catchphrase, “If you can’t store it in heaven…don’t store it at all.”
1 comment:
Gail;
-----I would be pleased if there were a place where you could take such items and deposit them for posterity’s sake. Now, we all know that posterity goes to the grave as we do. But we also know that the indeterminate “they” enjoy things we think to be trash as much as we enjoy things they would think to be trash. Somewhere, sometime, someone will take great interest in your mother and sister, and “they” will find much information about them here, there and yonder. But even if you kept the memorabilia, they’d probably never find it, for they are probably many generations after us. I suppose we could then call such a depository for memorabilia the garbage dump. “They” can go find it there.
-----But this whole idea reminds me of another cache of memorabilia allowed to feed the garbage dump of time. Against good sense, I learned from an “historical” movie that religion and power inflated Cyril of Alexandria’s head to the size of knowing what literature was and was not good for posterity. So, after having removed a few “good” works from the Library of Alexandria, the fool torched the rest. The “historical” movie itself, not its message, was the better commentary upon making such determinations. For, in actuality, it is not known exactly who was responsible for that library’s destruction, nor when.
-----It is known, though, that the practice of the pompous powers at Alexandria for at least a couple centuries was to require every ship entering the harbor to give up any literature it contained for copying. By royal mandate, envoys were well funded and sent to the book fairs at Rhodes and Athens. They amassed a tremendous amount of books and papers and documents, estimates say three to five hundred thousand. Who cares?
-----Posterity. People are a curious lot. What happened before them can even help orient themselves for proper response to what will happen to them. Had this library, and the library at Pergamum, and other great libraries like them not have been lost, we might not be swamped in the foolishness of Charles Darwin. It was only recently that I discovered the Book of Jasher is yet extant. The Bible refers its readers to that book for further historical information. It even quotes David’s lament over the loss of Jonathan from it. It refers to other books as well. So I bought a copy of Jasher. It is fascinating, to say the least. Berosus of Chaldea, Hecataeus of Abdera, Hestiaeus the student of Plato, and Nicolaus of Damascus are referenced by Josephus regarding The Great Flood, the remnants of the ark, and the events of Babel. Wouldn’t it be nice to have in hand the rest of what must have been available in those three hundred thousand other scrolls concerning the story line in the Bible? I often ponder that these libraries could have contained books and literature, or at least references to such, carried through the flood by Noah. Surely Jasher, possibly Moses, and the authors of Judges accessed some sort of historical records I would love to have.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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