STORAGE

When I moved from one house to another
there were many things I had no room
for. What does one do? I rented a storage
space. And filled it. Years passed.
Occasionally I went there and looked in,
but nothing happened, not a single
twinge of the heart.
As I grew older the things I cared
about grew fewer, but were more
important. So one day I undid the lock
and called the trash man. He took
everything.
I felt like the little donkey when
his burden is finally lifted. Things!
Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
fire! More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who own
nothing–the reason they can fly.

Mary Oliver

I first read this poem on September 6 of this year, soon after we landed in Korea. I knew that we needed to move around this time since our hope of staying at Yangpyong fell through. Disappointment soon translated into a mild case of desolation. Appropriately, I wrote on the side of the title of the poem, “When desolation was a theme.” Upon arriving back from a six-month-long trip to Asia, we did what Oliver described. For a few weeks, both of our trash and recycle bins were full to the brim, and we donated even more to a local thrift shop. I wish I could say I was as decisive as Oliver, but I did accept the process as a spiritual exercise, intuitively sensing that it would allow us to “fly.”

It was during that time I was also meditating on Jesus’ words in Matthew 6 about considering “the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.” In the passage (from verses 25 to 34), Jesus repeated this one word seven times which often is translated as worry in English. In Greek, it is a little more nuanced—it means to be anxious or to care for (or look out for) a thing. One could deduce that Jesus’ teaching was against being anxious or troubled with care for something else that takes our eyes off the main thing. Rather, the main thing or concern was to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Jesus did not consider “all these things” as completely rubbish (in fact, Jesus said these things would be given) but his main concern was where our primary focus and interest lie. Jesus equated worrying with having little faith.

In addition, my monkey mind jumped to G.K. Chesterton’s words I read a couple of years earlier, and has stayed with me. It is not a short paragraph and I thought of omitting a few middle sentences, but I would like to go ahead and share the whole paragraph. I would encourage you to read with a bit of imagination.

“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modern Pre-raphaelites could not imitate in the real Pre-raphaelites. Burne-Jones could never recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages. In the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.”

G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (from a chapter, The Eternal Revolution)

The idea that seriousness is a vice (which he modulated as a sensible heresy) allows me to pause with my mind swirling. The simple sentence “It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light” drives it home. The imaginative idea and why of angels flying and Satan falling lingers with me.

The birds can fly because they own nothing. “The angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.” Owning nothing is an impossible task in this life. However, owning to attach our values, and identity, and to give elevated meanings falls short of poetic and imaginative exhortations and the very teaching of Jesus. We own to rightfully let go and let it flow right out of us. What we own does not define who we are. If anything, we are defined by what we are willing to let go. In the end, we are who we are only by how God created us to be, not by any additions, weights, or meanings.

The call, if I can use the word, for “more room in our heart for love” (it is not lost on me that Oliver adds “for the trees”) and seeking the Kingdom of God first and his righteousness sound perennial truth to me today. Letting go and creating more room in our hearts for love seem directly proportional to one another. I convince myself today that it is the only way I can fly.