Possessed by possessions and positions

Jesus is very clear about one thing in today’s Gospel and if I am honest, it makes me super anxious. I wrote a reflection about this in the current Give Us This Day, but honestly, I just reread the Gospel and it has me in a twist all over again.

We must renounce all of our possessions. I look around our house and think about how much stuff I would love to get rid of, but then I am very slow to actually do so. Sure, I read the articles and books that tell me to spend 15 minutes a day doing one thing. 15 minutes? Are you joking? It would take me a lot more than 15 minutes to figure out where to begin. While I have ditched many an object over the past few years, including letting go of a ton of books, I still have too much stuff. It is a slow work in progress.

Then I think about what Jesus might want me to renounce along with the multitude of books, tchotchkes, and more. What can I declutter from my soul itself? What thoughts, feelings, and more possess me, making no space for Christ himself? That will be the much more difficult portion of renouncing, that much I already know.

This of course is the greatest challenge, to let go of what possesses us both in soul and spirit as well as in our material lives. What a work in progress this is, one I will wrestle with forever. When I think about it I can see clearly that all I need is God, but when I look around I see that I have a lot of baggage that grew out of my wants. Until I dislodge the possessions of obsession, inaction, and distraction, this is going to be a difficult journey…