Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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The Auction ...

Totally unpremeditated, that is the only way to describe what happened that Sunday afternoon. The morning had been full of good surprises, some at Azalia Church, but especially at London. The folks at London Church had really "made my day" by having a "Pastor's Appreciation Celebration". They had kept it a secret, I was taken totally unawares, and it was one of the few times the folks have seen me speechless. There were lots of people in worship (one from as far away as the Dakotas) and they said many kind things about me, folks presented me with a beautiful picture, we laughed and cried quite a bit, and after worship, we had a grand time talking over cake and ice cream.

On the way home, I passed an estate auction but I didn't think much of it. I wanted to get home because my brother and sister-in-law were coming to spend the afternoon. It was going to be the first opportunity we would have to do anything with them since my brother-in-law almost lost his right foot to a Brown Recluse Spider bite. He had come altogether too close to having an amputation. It had been a nasty, nasty bite. Our original plan was to have a quick dinner and then go down to the Toledo Zoo. But, by the time we were finished eating, it was too late to go.

Our conversation turned to the question "what else can we do?" Susie and I both thought of the auction. The consensus was to head for the estate auction even though it was late in the afternoon and the sale had begun at 11 A.M. We piled into my "in-laws" new Cadillac jesting good naturedly that they wouldn't be able to buy anything at the auction because the car was already full of stuff that they were going to take back to the Upper Peninsula with them.

We needn't have worried about the sale being over. It was at a farm and the family had lived there for probably at least half a century. The auctioneer still was working his way to the large furniture items. When we walked into the yard, the item on the block was a cache of nail kegs (about 15 or 20 of them) all nicely preserved and they went for $2 apiece.

As we mingled with the small crowd and looked at the items that were yet to be sold, we walked by two or three farm wagons each loaded with knick-knacks, lamps, postcards, toys, books, kitchen items, tools, all stuff that had been important to someone at sometime. All were items that, for someone, had been an important part of their life (a kind of treasure) because of the place it had in their day (a skillet that had been used to make eggs every morning, perhaps), or the memories attached (the gift from a certain special someone or the souvenir of a special trip, there was part of a tea set from Japan on one of the wagons). The items ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous, from stuff that was obviously junk to stuff that would be extremely valuable.

I could not help but think, this is someone's life out here in this farmyard. This is someone's life, arranged on farm wagons, standing in little rows for everyone to see. This is someone's life being put up for sale. This was all that was left of 70, 80 or 90 years of someone's hard work, joy, sorrow, passion and dreams. This is someone's legacy. And people were buying it bits and pieces at a time to the sing-song of the auctioneer's chant. I'll be honest, I went mostly because I hoped to find an ironsted bed that we could buy.

We left without making any purchases. Our conversation in the car, both going to and returning from the auction tended to come back to the same line... all the stuff that we have and all the stuff we will leave behind for someone else to root through and add to their collection of stuff (which in turn they will leave behind for yet others to root through and add to their collection). I found myself with mixed feelings and I began to ask myself: "What will be your legacy, what will you leave behind?"

I know that part of my legacy will be the tangible stuff, like the stuff we saw at the estate auction. Someone will get my George Clinton and my Bob Marley and my Jerry Lee Lewis and my Mitch Ryder and my Gregorian Chant "CD's," someone will get my lapel button collection, someone will get the stuff that I brought back from Haiti, someone will get my first edition copy of Reinhold Niebuhr's book, "Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic," someone will get my read and reread copy of Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass," someone will get my study Bibles (the ones that I have spent so many hours with in my search for God and meaning), someone will get my hammer, the one I used to build the bench and the wood box and the harvest table, and someone will get the copper bracelet that my wife gave me before she was my wife.

I know I don't want to be like the man Jesus described in the Gospel of Luke (12:16- 2) And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.' "Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." ' "But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

I hope that the most important part of my legacy will be intangibles, the sorts of things people shared on that Sunday morning and said that they appreciated about me, things that witness to whatever there is of Christ in me and to those moments when I helped to stir up something of Christ in others: prayers, minutes or hours in hospital waiting rooms, a sermon or two that spoke to the spiritual condition of people in a deep and real way, time spent at the bedside of a dying saint, an encouraging word in time of trouble that helped someone hang on just a little longer, until God worked all things together for good, a listening ear for someone whose heart was troubled or broken, a bag of groceries for a family facing hunger, an unexpected Christmas gift when a family thought their would be no Christmas this year. I hope that I leave a legacy of discipleship and witness to God and to our Lord Jesus.

Jesus, on one hand, didn't leave behind very much, the clothes on his back that he wore every day; perhaps, the cup that he drank from; and, the shroud he was buried in. No need for an estate auction there. On the other hand, he left behind a fabulous wealth, the priceless gift of the Revelation of God, the Gospel of the Kingdom, the witness of how to live the life of Love each and every day, ... the matchless promise of his own Resurrection. What a legacy?!?