possessions on Complexity of Life

Less is more. Coined by Robert Browning and popularized by the German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, nothing could be further from the literal truth. But when people use this exp...

For many of us, living in excess doesn’t express itself in extremities. It doesn’t translate to tying $4,000 to balloons and releasing it into the air. It doesn’t have to amount to owning six houses (...

The search for the good life, which so often is defined in terms of “things” and the means to get as many “things” as possible, has turned into a dead end as more and more people have more and more.

In his classic monologue, comedian George Carlin riffed on the mountain of stuff we compile. His assertion is that a “house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.” So when you get right down to ...

In America, we consume twice as many material goods as we did fifty years ago. Over the same period, the size of the average American home has nearly tripled, and today that average home contains abou...

The three immutable facts: You own stuff. You will die. Someone will get that stuff.

We really must understand that the lust for affluence in contemporary society is psychotic. It is psychotic because it has completely lost touch with reality. We crave things we neither need nor enjoy...

For all our time and attention, no matter how carefully we curate our stuff or how much we might enjoy ourselves along the way, we’re all merely stocking and staging someone else’s opportunity for bar...

Have you ever seen an episode of the A&E TV show Hoarders? It’s a show about perfectly normal-looking people who live in perfectly normal-looking houses who become overwhelmed by their possessions...

At the airport, Hugh Maclellan Jr. saw an acquaintance who looked troubled. “What’s the matter?” Hugh asked. The man sighed. “I thought I was finally going to have a weekend to myself. But now I have ...

During a retreat at the Taizé compound in France, a young American shared a remarkable discovery. He said: “Back home, surrounded by all my possessions, I often feel uncertain about many things. Here,...

Picture 269 people entering eternity in a plane crash in the Sea of Japan. Before the crash there is a noted politician, a millionaire corporate executive, a playboy and his playmate, a missionary kid...

A few weeks after Rich Mullins died in a car accident in 1997 at age forty-one, his friend and financial manager, Jim Dunning, went to collect Rich’s possessions. Mullins was a wildly successful Chris...

Members of the Natomo family sit on the flat roof of their mud house in Mali, Africa, posing for their early morning photograph. Their earthly belongings are arrayed in front of them. Two kettles, pla...

“The reason I am a minimalist today,” Troy began, “is because of the color of my house.” I’d never heard that one before, so I asked Troy to explain what he meant. Troy was a tall man of about forty w...

Discipleship on the Road Mark 10 is set along Jesus’ journey through Judea, on his way to Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus has a series of encounters with people who present very earthy and urgent issu...

Discipleship on the Road Mark 10 is set along Jesus’ journey through Judea, on his way to Jerusalem. Along the way Jesus has a series of encounters with people who present very earthy and urgent issu...

The common expression that describes such a value system as “the pursuit of the almighty dollar” is soundly based in the recognition that the exaltation of possessions to the level of ultimacy is the ...

Introduction Hard Sayings These hard sayings of Jesus come at the end of a section spanning two chapters (Luke 13:10-14:35). In it, Jesus’s actions and teachings are set in parallel structure: hea...

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

No change of job, no increased income, no new home, no new electronic device, or no new spouse is going to make things better inside of you.

Great needs grow from great possessions.

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned to buy things they don’t want to impress people they don’t like.

Things are not ends in themselves; they are means to greater attachment to others. . . . But to have a good relationship with others, it is necessary to have a proper relationship with things.

In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the ...

There was a period when I believed stuff meant something. I thought that if you had matching side chairs and a sofa that harmonized and some beautiful lamps to light them you would have a home, that e...

Thus it is that we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.

The drive to possess is an engine for hurry.

Let us treasure up in our soul some of those things which are permanent..., not of those which will forsake us and be destroyed, and which only tickle our senses for a little while.

Known for their luxury watches, Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe has also become well-known for its clever advertising slogan: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe; you merely take care of it for t...