There are boxes that I have moved from one place to another without opening them to examine the contents. This move is different. We are trying to reduce clutter significantly!
One box is memorabilia and records from the churches I've served. I've been going through it this week in the evenings. When we moved from Akron, I finally discarded all the bulletins that I'd saved from these churches. Tucked in each bulletin was the sermon for that Sunday.
Now, I'm going through records. Every visit made - with notes. Every correspondence. Every phone contact. Complete logs of what I did every day - that go back to the early 1980's. Then come the journals.
In addition are the records of my devotional times. Written prayers, prayer lists, and praise lists. Stacks of them. And, of course, every card and note that anyone ever sent me...
I feel like I'm holding my life in my hands. Unbelievable. I shared it all with Deb last night. She agreed that this is the direct influence of Hazel (my Mom). But my Dad was also an organizer and saver; so I got a double whammy! :-)
What is it that makes it so hard to chuck all this stuff? My kids would never go through it. They'll burn it in the back yard - laughing and wondering why Dad kept all this junk!
I've never referred back to it - and probably never will. Isn't it amazing how hard it is to let go of stuff?
Well, enough rambling. I've got to make a trip to the dumpster. The big question for me is: I end my pastoral ministry in eight days; does that mean I can quit logging my activities?
NO! Lol, as someone who has been turning over every pebble I can find to uncover tidbits from the past - and God bless your Dad for keeping the stuff about camp that he did (those things are treasures!) - I wouldn't throw it all away. See if the historical center might want it for the future. The future is getting created every day and I'll bet you that one of those days someone will find your records invaluable! I can't tell you how disappointing it is to track something down finally and then call the current church or pastor there and to hear that the "old church caught fire and all the records were lost" or "we don't have those any more" etc. Ugh! I completely understand the need to not keep "junk" - I personally LOVE "pitch days" but church records with people's names, dates and whatnot should be saved if possible for the future. It's so easy for people and history to disappear . . . see if Marston's might want it - at least an organized portion of it. Sorry to go on but I've just been running into this dilemma for months now and actually right before I read this I was debating the futility of trying to contact ANOTHER church to see if they could tell me ANYTHING about this pastor from 1930. So, lol, I vote No! (And please ask Debbie NOT to shoot me :-)
ReplyDeleteGo for it Harold! After cleaning out your folks stuff, my folks stuff, my grandparents stuff, another lady at the church stuff....I am desperately trying to declutter stuff that I know right well my kid's won't want. Now if I could just get Ira to do that all would be wonderful! sigh! Joyce
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