Yesterday, I packed books.  How many books do you have in your house?  I bet your stack is like mine.  Books that I will never read again and that have no reason to take up space in my house.  There were books from college.  Books from Ken's teaching career.  Books from all the years that I taught math.  The only reason I kept them was that my name was in some of them as an editor.  I got rid of a bunch of them.  But not enough.  I swear, I am going to think twice before I put those books that I didn't throw away on the bookshelf in my new house.

Moving gives you a chance to clear things out.  We keep stuff because we might need it, but when we do need it, we don't know where we put it.  I am sure some of you out there have a system and can find everything you want to find.  I have a system.  I put everything in the study to sort later.  At least I know which room it is in.  "Later" sometimes doesn't come around for a long time.

Some people put stuff in their attic.  I have absolutely nothing in my attic.  I figure that if I put it up there, I didn't really need it.  So "attic items" get donated.

Some people buy sheds to fill up with things they no longer need.  I bought a shed once.  But the only thing I put in it was garden equipment.  Again, if I don't need it any longer and am just saving it for "just in case", I donate it to the Methodist church for their mission sale.  So it looks like the only thing I can't let go of very easily is books.  And I am going to do better.

Luke 12:15 "And Jesus said unto them, Take heed, beware of covetousness: for a man's life doesn't consist in the abundance of the things which he possesses."  And then Jesus told the parable of the man who tore down his barns to build bigger barns in which to put more stuff--rather than share his abundance with others.  It didn't turn out too good.  The man died and all his stuff was worth nothing to him.  My plan is to leave nothing for people to worry with when I am gone.