simple, bare necessities

A lot of the day yesterday was spent working through Mum's 'things'.

My sisters are both up here this week, and I'm on holiday, so it made good sense to take the time to deal with all these matters while we could. A lot easier - and a lot more fun - doing it all together.

It's really been remarkably starightforward. Partly because my older sister is brilliant at that sort of thing. But partly, too, because my Mum didn't really have that much. Her affairs were pretty simple.

Being in the flat and sorting through her 'things' impressed upon my heart again the fact that none of these are things we can take with us when we die.

'Stuff' doesn't travel well. In fact it doesn't travel at all across the border to eternity.

And that very simple, basic fact of life struck home again quite powerfully. Simplicity has a lot of things going for it!

And not just when we die. Though there, not least, we do a massive favour to our relatives by living with a clear and kind simplicity. But while we live as well, it's not just those around us but ourselves as well we do the massive favour to.

I remember reading, a long, long time ago now, the journals of Jim Eliot, the missionary martyr of a previous generation: and I remember being struck by one of the quotes I read -

"God deliver me from the dread asbestos of other things."

I echo the prayer. Simplicity's the future. And I need to learn to make it also present in my life.