Let go or be dragged…

Rosemary and I are going through an interesting experience. A year ago we decided to “right size” and signed up for a new, significantly smaller home which is currently being built. It is well under way and we are probably about 4 months from move in date (and my, builders are evasive if you try and pin them down to a date. Don’t misunderstand me, they have been wonderful in every other way, but what started as “perhaps by Christmas 2025” is now “probably by the second quarter of 2026”.) Our new home will be about half the size of our present one and our block size reduces from 609 to 302 sq m.

Think through that statement and you will realise that the tensest conversations in our home revolve around the downsizing question and who is giving up what. Rosemary has no doubts about what I should get rid of, but her list bears little resemblance to mine and is far longer, and the same is true in reverse. I make the perfectly logical suggestion that any clothes not worn for 3 years should be disposed of, and while Rosemary agrees that this is valid for mens clothing, she comes up with 100 reasons why it doesn’t apply for women’s attire. A remarkable number of our discussions land up in the “well let’s come back to that later” basket.

Deciding what to get rid of also sparks many waves of nostalgia. Our children now range between 32 and 40 years – but they were little kids once, and we still have many super sweet reminders of those years. Can we really get rid of them? And some of the furniture I inherited from my grandmother – it’s lovely and classical, but the home we are moving into is sleek and efficient. I suspect it won’t look right. It gets even tougher when you ask others their opinion, as there is no consensus Some have bluntly said, “It will never work. Get rid of it.” Others have adopted the “Traditional and modern can look sensational if sensitively woven together” line. Who is right? It’s hopeless to ask that question as answers are evenly split. With less hanging space on the walls, which pictures to keep is even more difficult. Literally every picture in our present home has a story behind it. Some are gifts from churches where we pastored, others are the work of valued friends, several are the work of Rosemary. They are stunning. I want to keep them all. And then there are my books. Oh my – I am not even going to try to go there. I have already lost so much ground, and have given away over a thousand books, but it seems as though more will be required… sigh.

Naturally I am trying to frame our present situation constructively. We are in the truly blessed position of having more than we need. We have a lifetime of rich memories we want to hold on to. We have a new adventure to embrace and more memories to make. And we know why we are downsizing: we think it is responsible to have a smaller ecological footprint; we are getting older; we want better security (especially as I still travel a fair amount and Rosemary is then left alone); we want a lock and leave lifestyle so we can explore opportunities as they arise. We want a home that sets us free, not one which while it was perfect in our child raising years, now holds us back.

So why am I writing about this? Is it just a little bit of catharsis, or do I have some deeper points to make? Actually both – and how often in life we are poor because we insist on creating false opposites.

Recently I heard someone say, “Let go or get dragged”. So many of us hold on to things that are holding us back. Old resentments, tired old stories of how something didn’t work when we tried it in the past and so presumably will never work even though the circumstances have changed, and then there are all those old fears that stop us from even trying.

You have probably heard the story of the monkey who is trapped because he puts his paw into a carefully secured bottle filled with nuts. The mouth of the container is just large enough for his hand to go through, but with his palm filled with nuts, it is too large to be removed. The monkey stays trapped in place. It could easily have got free – all it had to do was to let the nuts go. But that was unthinkable, and so it is trapped and caught. The parable is obvious. I remember once seeing a dog chase after a stick that landed the other side of two very low branches of a tree. As he picked it up, the stick got caught by those two branches. The dog wrestled to get the stick free for at least 15 minutes before we took pity on him and forced the stick out his mouth. He could have been free at any point if he had just let it go.

It’s worth thinking about the oft repeated words of Jesus in Matt 6:19-21 and 34: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven… Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself…”

My prayer for you is that you will experience the freedom of letting yesterday’s burdens go, and find the lightness and delight of picking up the challenges and hopes of today. Life is rich when we can be grateful for the past, hopeful for the future, and engaged in the present. I hope this week for you is one of gratitude, hope and engagement… as you hold on to things that you should hold on to, and intentionally release those things whose day it done.

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