Years ago, my new apartment had a really nifty feature: a trash compactor. A device, according to the comedian Gallagher, designed to condense twenty pounds of trash into twenty pounds of trash.
Nifty, until I tried to use it. I bought plastic garbage bags to fit inside it .. which split and leaked. I went out and bought the expensive reinforced paper bags recommended by the manufacturer, and put the leaky plastic bags inside them, and mashed them again.
I was overconsuming in the worst way. With all due respect to another comedian – George Carlin – I suddenly realized I had bought something to stuff with the stuff that I had stuffed with the stuff I didn’t want in the first place.
I never used the trash masher again.
Of spiritual wealth, there can never be enough – but we seem to desire it less. It accumulates through giving to others of our material wealth; to God, of our worship.
Blog In My Own Eye 
Good analogy. I never had thought of a “trash masher” that way before, and have never had one or wanted one, particularly, but I do know what you mean about all the “stuff” of life.I got really tired of mine the first time when our house flooded the first time 10 years ago. I started drastically whittling down then and have kept at it and have added much more. We now have half empty closets throughout most of our house after living here for 13 years (can any of you imagine that?) and I’m always paring down even more.You know what, Keith – you sure can’t “take any of it with you” when you go and who else, exactly, will want any of it by then, anyway? I think about that every time I go to my mom’s large house and see all the things she accumulated over a long life. Then I come home and give away even more. I give my kids and grandkids and nieces gifts of things they’d like, or need, and just gave away even more things last week to our best friends who lost most of what they owned in Katrina.I wanted all of them to have it all, you know? And I have even more things to share (well, give) to even more people when I get the chance to next get out to deliver some things. I like your series on “heart worship.” Very appropriate. It’s only what’s in our hearts that stays with us when we go, so I want really badly for mine to be overflowing with the “important” stuff.
good post