WHERE YOUR TREASURE IS, SO SHALL YOUR HEART BE ALSO!

I remember some years ago a meditational moment that was so inspiring to me that it forced me to truly reflect upon and account for my STOREHOUSE TREASURE! The meditation in and of itself was fairly banal and relatively basic as far as meditations go, but the instructor's parting WORDS OF REFLECTION really got me going. He said: "Remember, where your treasure is, so shall your heart be also." I pondered this for quite sometime. I knew it was a metaphor from the Biblical text BUT I wondered if I was guilty of possessing a storehouse OF MEANINGLESS TREASURE--And I WAS. For years I had done nothing more than actively participate in the American culture of CONSUMERISM. I had stuff that came with stuff that required MORE STUFF to maintain it. I realized that I spent way too much time ACCOUNTING for my stuff and finding ways to keep my stuff from becoming someone else's stuff. I also DISCOVERED that I had formed quite INTELLIGENT RATIONALES to justify my detailed attention to ALL MY STUFF. What I didn't realize at the time BUT definitely believe in now is that THIS STOREHOUSE I had created was where my heart was. I put STUFF over family, STUFF over friends, STUFF over my own SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT because my stuff represented what I wanted the world to KNOW ABOUT ME. My sense of BELONGING was EMBEDDED in my stuff; my APPROVAL OF SELF was embedded in my stuff, and MY DESTINATION had to be determined by THE STUFF I had acquired. The AWFUL TRUTH was and is that I needed stuff to DEFINE ME, to get me into PLACES and SPACES, and to COMFORT ME and REASSURE ME. A bright note to this meditative reflection, however, is that over the years I've developed a SPIRITUAL understanding of how TEMPORAL I really am in relation to MY STUFF and recognition that my TREASURES are all about my interactions with NATURE AROUND me~At the end of the day, it's REALLY all about what I truly get to keep!