Hoarding Junk

Officials find hoarding junk causes trouble to pile up
By Gary Emerling
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The obsession to hoard such junk as old magazines, clothes -- even ceramic Santas and grenade launchers -- inside homes has become more than an unusual or minor nuisance in Fairfax County.
John Yetman, chairman of the county's Hoarding Task Force, said officials respond to about five cases a month and reported 55 such cases last year and 42 in 2003.
"This is not sloppy housekeeping," said Mr. Yetman, who explained hoarding can result in fire, disease, rodent infestation, structural damage to homes and occasionally death.

I no longer recall where I first heard this, but some wise person has explained that once upon a time in our culture we addressed personal problems by working at improving our personal characters. We chiseled away at our flaws, sanded our own rough edges, and believed in virtue. When we noticed a lack luster area of our own lives, we approached it by examining what was wrong with *us* deepdown. We worked at improving our personal character as a duty. Many of us pursued excellence in our spiritual lives as well, drawing nearer to God in daily attempts to refine character and become better people.

Today, we improve ourselves through accessorization. We don't want to be better people, we just want to be better looking. That book, that outfit, that knick-knack, doo-dad, or dust-catcher is just what we need to make our lives better. But the doo-hickeys never do make us as happy as we want to be, so we keep buying more and more and more.

Some among us have huge, gaping, holes in our inner lives, and we seek to fill that emtpy space up with ever increasing amounts of stuff. Stuff can never expand enough to fill in those holes. What we need is something much, much smaller. Something like a mustard seed.