Shredding & letting go

I finally came to terms with my top-shelf today! It was over-loaded with notes from my under-grad and post-grad degrees, and ministerial training. I have looked at them occasionally over the past decade or so, but I cannot justify putting them all into storage for 3 years. And so I've only glanced at them as I've piled high the recycling box. Shredding took place as I realised I've carried names and addresses with me from my placement churches, which is probably forbidden by the Data Protection regulations. I only hope the recycling collectors won't mind so many extra carrier bags on their rounds tomorrow.

It was strange to look back on those studies and it almost felt like a betrayal of some very excellent teachers when you finally throw out all that you tried to learn. I still have many of the books that I bought at university and those are truthfully more useful compared to unreadable scribbles taken down in lectures. Now weighing on my mind are 4 boxes of memoribilia that are stashed in the loft, perhaps it's time to tackle those as well.

The itinerant ministry is an unusual life, but ministers are not alone in needing to clear out the debris and the memories from time to time. To travel freely you need to travel light. I remember the words that Tim Clifford shared with Northwood Methodist Church about his walking pilgrimage to Santiago dell Compostela "I found as I walked that I didn't need the things that I had packed and thought were essential. All I needed I carried in my mind and in my heart." I think that I have remembered all I need from my days at university - most of that was never written down in the first place. And if I realise that I need to remember exactly what Barth or Bultmann or Moltmann thought, then there still remains the world of books; I would rather travel with their actual words and then mull over once again what I think, I don't need to read what I thought in the past because I either know it, or it is time to change my mind!