Dealing With The Spam File

By the hour and at times by the minute – my ‘Spam Box’ fills up on my computer. How about yours? On one of the computer programs that I work with the programmers call it ‘Spam’ and another they call it ‘Junk Mail’. On both it can be deleted easily by the push of a button. Click here and it is gone.

It seems that people find my email address of great value and have found a need to send me tons of emails about all kinds of really ridiculous things. Why would anyone in their right mind keep this kind of thing on their computer – let alone actually send for it or buy it? It staggers your mind.

If you have ever moved, you will have seen this happen in your own life and home. After years of living the ‘Spam’ or ‘Junk’ of your life builds up. It would take days of garage sales to get rid of the things that have accumulated. My mom and I have sorted through a little of her things to put in a garage sale. Others things we (or rather I) simply left behind in Regina when she moved to Peterborough. There are some difficult moments as we deal with the stuff…

The things have piled up and are difficult to get rid of. In life the sentimentality of the earthly treasures have a strong hold on each of us. In my case it is books… too many books… and some other stuff. Add to that other stuff that is piled high in my ‘garage office’ that has not been used for over 5 years. Others might and do call it clutter.

I (we) caught a TV Program a few weeks ago that had focused on one woman and her clutter in her home. How cruel could it be? The husband had contacted the famous TV Show personality and her production staff telling how cluttered his wife’s life was – how bad her home was. Then either without or with her permission they had come to film the lady’s house and garage.

Alida looked at me and said, “I am going to call them too”. Panic swelled and grabbed my throat. My blood pressure shot up and then down. My mouth went dry and then I gasped for breath. I weakly said, “I am dealing with my treasures. Slowly I am getting rid of the things I don’t need.” I went on to explain that I had a plan and that last week I had got rid of some books.

Yesterday my wife walked into to my office and looked around asking, “So how many books did you get rid of today?” This woman is good. She doesn’t forget. The earlier statement that I had made was true – but she was expecting me to deal with it on an ongoing basis. Get rid of the clutter. Get rid of the Junk. Get rid of the Spam. Get rid of it all.

Another wood carver that I know passed away. It was so neat that his wife and kids had brought his carvings to the funeral home to display around his coffin. When the hearse left the funeral home the next day after the service they didn’t have a trailer behind it with his un-carved logs in it. None of his carving books were in the hearse either – only a lot of flowers. The other day we drove by his place and all of the word carvings that decorated his yard are gone – so are the logs that were to be carved someday…

When the man across the street from us passed away I did the funeral for the family. He was a man that went to a lot of garage sales and a lot of auctions. He had lots of stuff. In fact at times it spilled into his driveway if his buys had been really good that week. But hey… he would always sell it and make more money from what he bought. I even was able to get a second scroll saw that I may use someday.

Two days after the funeral was over there was a huge orange dumpster in their driveway. The kids had come over and were rapidly and unceremoniously dumping the things this man had bought at the garage sales – IN THE DUMPSTER! Yikes what a loss! All that stuff going to the land fill. There were many things of value that went to build our city land fill higher that day. How sad.

As we drove into our driveway Alida shocked me when she said, “Now that is my kind of woman!” Again... panic swelled and grabbed my throat. My blood pressure shot up and then down. My mouth went dry and then I gasped for breath. I weakly said, “I am dealing with my treasures. Slowly I am getting rid of the things I don’t need.” To which Alida said with a smile, “Our kids will help me…”

Today is Friday… tomorrow is Saturday and I think the day is free to dig some more junk out and click it away. I think I will start on the back corner that I can’t walk through. I think I should take a photo for you to see my issue and then to show you my progress.

Whew – I got this written before Alida got out of bed and today is busy so she will not be able to read this blog for a few days….

~ Pastor Murray Lincoln ~