All packed up with no place to go...

Well the title is slightly misleading, actually we have now packed just over 40 boxes (out of 120) and we do have a place to go but it has been delayed, so we wait.

It is strange packing after living in a place for ten years. The process of sifting, sorting, dumping, recycling and selling is one that takes time and with every new box a new memory, opened up and then packed away again or with 7 trips to the recycling centre and 6 trips to the charity shop, disposed of.

Perhaps the most difficult and baffling box of 'stuff' for me has to be my old LPs (for those too young to remember like CDs but black and much bigger!). I have a signed album by Gary Numan, I have everything by Japan - it was when I heard this band play that I wanted to play bass because the sound of Mick Karn's bass playing was so mesmerising. I have my first single 'Pop Music' by 'M', I have a record Sharon bought me on our wedding day and my first CD, again a present from Sharon along with a CD player when we were  married only a couple of years. The weird thing is that I have not opened these boxes (yes there are several boxes!) since we moved from Bristol. They have been of no actual use in our ten years in Exeter and I am taking them lock stock and barrel with me to Cranbrook.

Now I was determined to go through a sorting process but with everything else to do I baulked at that, it just seemed too hard and so I am keeping them all, even records that I no longer like - Adam and the Ants, Wham, Bad Manners etc! Now although I have not yet decided to dispose of any of them there is a change in my feelings towards them. Twenty years ago they would have been my most treasured possessions yet now I could be persuaded to sell most of them and dump many without much worry.

As a Christian I am all too aware of the idea of 'new life', Jesus tells a man he can be born again and Paul talks of the 'new life' a person finds when they decide to follow Jesus. This was an experience I had 30 years ago (I was 46 this week) when I decided to become a Christian at the age of 16. For me there was much 'unpacking' of what this means and as I journey on trying to follow Jesus there is still much 'unpacking' of meaning and understanding.

The idea of a 'new life' suggests the idea of an 'old' one, aspects of our lives that we are not helpful, that we are not proud of or want to move on from, stuff 'packed away' or 'boxed up'. To take the example of my study and garage if I gather too many boxes then both places will become uninhabitable, not fit for their purpose or intention. So there is a place for sorting our 'stuff' and sorting the 'stuff' of out lives and deciding whether it still serves a purpose or whether it impinges on what we might be.

So as we move I will keep re-evaluating the stuff in my boxes and the stuff in my life - deciding what must be dumped and what might be recycled. I think the real key to the 'new life' that the Bible talks about though isn't focussed on what is wrong or should be disposed of but much about what new opportunities and experiences we have when we clear a bit of space, maybe this is what prayer is.

Now I think I will go through my LPs and see what can be done.