The depiction of the portable Bedouin home is challenging for those of us who have houses, filled with possessions. When we move it takes maybe months and weeks of planning. When I resigned as pastor, it was quite a task just to move my books and files home. The culture is against us in this and we don't even know it. When a family from Nigeria in our congregation had their third child, they were determined that people would not give them things they didn't need as baby shower gifts, like a stroller! Most parents consider that an essential. How much do we need?
Yet the possessions that we surround ourselves with demand attention - things have to be cared for, cleaned, repaired, stored; things associated with permanence take our time. How can this be reconciled with a sense of the impermanence of this world? Is it really possible to hold lightly to possessions while maintaining a 'grip' on the fleetingness of life? Perhaps for too long western Christians have tried to maintain that precarious balance - living with their eyes on heaven, while maintaining a house, a car, perhaps a cottage, a boat, etc, etc. I see something different in some of the next generation - a chosen simplicity, a determination to be free of things.
Still, we can be free. We can remind ourselves and those we lead regularly that heaven is our home, that we need to travel lightly. And we can determine to get rid of things that weigh us down.
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