Travelin' Light

When I was working in South Africa last fall (or spring, from the South African perspective), I made a few observations on this blog about wants and needs. For example, a want is a new SUV; a need is a pair of shoes with the soles intact. A want is a bigger house; a need is a roof that doesn’t leak. And so on.

Now, as I budget to go back to Cape Town for a year, the reality of want-versus-need is becoming more acute to me. Since I’ll be living primarily on support funds from other people, my spending plans are focused on needs like food, shelter and transportation.

I’m also preparing for a renter to take over my house, so I’ve been selling or tossing out a lot of things rather than put them in storage. It’s amazing how something I used to covet – like, for example, those shiny new irons that were going to transform my golf game – has no appeal anymore. Getting rid of “stuff” has been an incredibly liberating feeling.

I’m finding that the older I get, the less excited I get about material things. I read an article on forbes.com about some of the world’s top “mega-mansions.” One of these residences, owned by Indian industrialist Lakshmi Mittal, cost $128 million and has an indoor pool, Turkish baths, garage space for 20 cars and marble taken from the same quarry that supplied the Taj Mahal.

But it’s still just … stuff. With the right laws of physics applied, it could crumble. I’m sure it would be nice to spend a night there, but I would be just as happy in a tent. Probably happier, even. I never thought I would quote anything Shania Twain sang, but I hear a chorus ringing in my head: “That don’t impress me much.”

What matters, I am slowly learning, is that accumulating stuff in this world doesn’t matter nearly as much as what I store up for the next life. Jesus said “a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). He also said, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-20).