It's Hard to Have Katundu if You Live in a Bedouin Tent

Sparkfly friend Valerie Burton is a great preacher. The first time I ever heard her preach was at Passport the summer the theme was Katundu. Katundu means stuff and all week we talked about the stuff in our lives that weighs us down.

It is pretty amazing that I still remember Valerie's sermon after almost five years. She and her husband Allan had just moved from Virginia to Alabama. She was lamenting the packing and unpacking process and how she had so much katundu that she had saved over the years.

I've thought about her sermon a lot today as I've unpacked box after box. I really thought about it when I carried many boxes up a ladder to keep in my attic for who knows how long. The crazy thing is that most of the stuff I don't need and will I ever need.

I come from a long line of folks who save things. What is it about scraps of paper and random buttons from who knows where that makes me want to store them in shoe boxes?

Today I found an entire file folder full of emails from my friend Tamara. If being a pack rat means saving letters too then I am proud to be one. They were written while Tamara was living in the Middle East. I'd love to live there one day. A lot of the letters were about that very thing . . . living there. It's great to be reminded of our first love.

Wading through katundu,
S