Giving Away My “Stuff”...

I am the product of a perfect storm of frugality. Born to a mother who lived through the Great Depression, raised by grandparents with a Hutterite heritage of simplicity and never wasting anything, I came of age in that save-the-earth era of the 1960s and 70s. I rode my bicycle the ten miles to and from my high school on the first Earth Day in 1970. In adulthood I fully bought into the reuse, reduce, recycle, green, save-the-earth mentality of the 2000s. Our recycling dumpster is usually full on garbage collection day, our trash dumpster almost empty. I have three (3!!!) compost bins in the backyard. With such an impressive resume of environmental concern, one would think I'd have figured out by now what to do with “stuff”... those things that fill my life that I don't want or need anymore, but I just can't seem to get rid of. “Stuff”...

I spent most of my childhood and part of my young adulthood believing that everything I owned I would keep until 1) it broke, 2) it wore out, or 3) I outgrew it. Any other option seemed like an irresponsible waste of something that was still useful.* Over time, I learned to let go of clothing and household items I was no longer enamored with by donating them to thrift stores and agencies that collected such things. But what about the “stuff”...those things that were just one small step above being actual garbage, the “stuff” that could be useful to the right someone, surely, who would be happy to repurpose it and give it a new life? Now, in the downsizing stage of late middle life, I had to face the fact I had a basement full of “stuff” to deal with.

I never had a desire to have a garage sale, having a hard time imaging people would pay for anything I would be willing to part with. But the concept of having a giveaway “sale” was something I had been entertaining for a number of years. Finally, when the “stuff” in the basement had gotten to a critical level, I made note of the days of our annual neighborhood association garage sales and got to work moving boxes of items into our garage to give away. I printed signs that read “GIVEAWAY – EVERYTHING FREE! (REALLY!)” and listed our address, posting signs at the two entrances to the neighborhood and putting two more signs on the front lawn. We filled the garage with “stuff”, my husband chalking lines around the free stuff, marking the interior “free”, the exterior “not free or for sale”. (We really did want to keep the canoe and the lawn mover and the garden tools...)

My husband had serious doubts about this giveaway thing.** He brought the boxes up from the basement, muttering under his breath that nobody would want this “stuff” and we would just put it in the garbage dumpster at the end of the weekend. But he humored me, putting up the signs and willingly sat in the garage the first morning of the garage sales to keep an eye on the canoe and lawn mover while I went off to Bible study. He had to be somewhere before I returned, saying he would just shut the garage door for the fifteen minute gap in time before I returned. I pulled into the driveway about noon, opened the garage door and was amazed to see the garage that was full of stuff at 9 am was now down about a third of its volume. I sat in the garage that afternoon and experienced what I imagined my husband had experienced that morning.

Several neighbors had real garage sales around us, so we benefited from their traffic. Cars would slow down, look toward the garage, some stop, some move on only to come around again. “Is it really all free?” was a common question. I got into the habit of addressing each approaching newcomer by saying “It's all free. If you can use it, just take it.” And they did. Some would offer money for their finds. We would decline, saying if they felt the need to pay for it, to just send something to their favorite charity. Some people would come, look and leave without taking anything. I imagined they probably had their own basement of “stuff” to deal with.

My husband returned and joined me in the garage, telling me about his productive morning. He graciously said he had come to see the greatness in the giveaway idea. People love getting free stuff, and surprisingly the not-quite-garbage was in fact useful finds for many people. The two dozen glass jelly jars I used to store dried herbs in? Snapped up by some woman. The three dozen plus metal teas tins (Yeah, we drink a LOT of tea...) was excitedly taken by a man who was looking to organize the hardware in his own basement. (I had used the tins for the same purpose, but was unable to break the habit of saving them, even when I had more than I needed...) He also took two old lawn chairs badly in need of restrapping. Old flower pots, boxes of old crayons, random plastic storage containers, old books and magazines, Barbie cars, cheap jewelry and small toys from Happy Meals, sports trophies my children had no interest in keeping, obsolete electronics and various and sundry other “stuff”.

Neighborhood kids would come and rummage through all the kids stuff there, taking some, coming back with friends to take some more. “This is the best garage sale in the neighborhood because everything is FREE!” said one young repeat customer. After he returned a twelfth time, he said he came just to talk to us. His mom had told him he couldn't bring anymore things home. A Hispanic family came toward the garage. I spoke my line about everything being free. The husband spoke something in Spanish to his wife whose eyes lit up and she happily began gathering up her finds. Their children shyly began picking through the toys, perhaps stunned by their good fortune. Some people would ask why we were doing this. Some people asked about the logistics of it, they themselves thinking it was something they might want to try.

One of the items we were giving away was an old metal garden rake, its wooden handle broken in two. My husband wanted to put it directly in the dumpster, but no, I said, I had seen on a craft website that some creative person had sawed off the handle of just such an old rake and turned it into a wine glass hanger. My husband rolled his eyes, left the rake alone and said that if some one took the broken rake, he would declare me a true giveaway genius. We watched as people approached the rake and passed it by, or took it up to look at it and put it down. One man took the rake, got as far as his car, brought it back and said he remembered he had a broken rake just like it at home. The other item that was to become a measure of my recycling-reusing giveaway genius was the box of unwanted sports trophies. I had previously talked to someone at a trophy store, asking if they recycled sports trophies or knew of anyone who did. He said no, but he had heard that some crafters take them apart and use the colorful columns and stone bases for craft projects. The last day of the sale such a crafter came by. She and her husband were staying with relatives in our neighborhood on the way to Kentucky from a trip out west. She took the box of trophies, saying she did indeed take them apart and use the various pieces for different craft projects. She also took the broken rake. She was quite excited to get both and she and her husband gifted us with a railroad spike from a collection of spikes they had in their car from their trip through the Dakotas.

By the last day of the garage sales, there was little left in the our garage. Sadly, books and magazines did not disappear. The books went to Goodwill, the magazines in the dumpster. Aside from those items very little else had to be disposed of. With the big box of sports trophies gone and the broken rake on the way to being repurposed, my husband declared me the genius of the garage giveaway.

***

This year we repeated our successful giveaway when the neighborhood garage sales rolled around again. We had a smaller collection of “stuff”, but again most of it went. Kids' sports tee shirts, excess water bottles, old coffee mugs, backpacks, an obsolete under-the-counter cassette player/radio, a futon without a frame, and boxes of hair paraphernalia all went. A huge box of scrap lumber dwindled to a few random pieces. We put out more books, and this time there were some takers. We had repeat visitors in the neighborhood kids, again sorting through a new batch of small toys and costume jewelry. The man in the neighborhood who took the thirty plus tea tins last year came back and told my husband that thanks to those tins he now had neatly arranged all the hardware in his basement. He said that last year, when he left our garage, he stopped at the local Walmart with the old strapless lawn chairs in the back of his pickup truck. When he came out of the store, they were gone. Those giveaway items had unexpectedly and unwittingly been “given away” again...

*If you desire to delve deeper into my save-everything mentality check out:

http://marynapier.blogspot.com/2014/03/mentalshelving-myhusband-grew-up-in.html

**If you want to delve deeper into his throw-away everything mentality, see above link...

And Now for Something Completely Different...

“What's with The Angle?” you may have been wondering. “Has she given up writing?” I haven't been posting much on this blog site the past year because I've been working on a new blog – Haban R Us.* Unlike the “eclectic ramblings” of The Angle, the new blog has required more research and reading and remembering and is still very much in process. However, I feel I've written enough to launch it, so check it out. It's an exploration and history of my family's spiritual roots. I hope to make it long on stories and succinct on the historical narrative. I plan on posting to the new blog frequently (the definition of frequently yet to be determined...) and there seems to be enough family and historical material to keep it going for a long while. The new blog can be found at https://habanrus.blogspot.com/

I'll continue to link my new blog posts to facebook, but I'm leaving this note for those who bypass fb and come directly here. I'll continue my eclectic ramblings in The Angle when the mood strikes me. Probably during fishing season...

*Most of my readers are probably thinking “Whaat?” Some of my readers, however, might recognize the word and think “Oh, goody! Grandma and Grandpa stories!”

Looking at Billy Graham from a Catholic Pew

Billy Graham was someone who flitted in and out of my Catholic awareness growing up...the tall, handsome man with the booming, yet surprisingly gentle voice, preaching to large crowds in stadiums on TV...the person seen with presidents during times of national and political crisis...the face on the back of the latest bestseller at the local Christian bookstore. My hard-of-hearing grandfather would watch Billy Graham's crusades on the television, holding a small speaker to his ear to catch every word, commenting at some point that the Catholic Church needed to have more preachers like Billy Graham. Grandpa knew Graham wasn't Catholic, yet he recognized the universal appeal of Billy Graham's message to Catholics, Protestants and anyone else out there that might be listening. Grandpa knew that every person Billy Graham invited to enter into a relationship with God could, as the iconic crusade hymn sings, come “Just as I am”, with their sin and imperfections, and receive forgiveness, salvation, eternal life along with that all important relationship with a loving God. Pretty good deal for anyone. But I think my grandfather also recognized Billy Graham offered something that the Catholic Church lacked - process – simple, thoughtful, make-a-decision process. The word process is defined as a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end. The process that Billy Graham offered went like this: listen to the gospel message, decide to fully buy into it, come forward publicly to acknowledge the buying in, and start (more deeply continue, for some) to live a changed life, one more lived for God than oneself.

Growing up Catholic, I was familiar with all the words Billy Graham would use during his crusades, but I didn't know a thing about process. In my second grade-first-communion-preparation understanding of the Baltimore Catechism I came to understand the gospel message that Jesus's death and resurrection was all about forgiveness, salvation, eternal life and getting into a relationship with a loving God. We get to go to heaven because Jesus died for our sins. We get to have a relationship with God because Jesus died for our sins. We get eternal life because Jesus rose from the dead...after he died for our sins. I bought into it all, though looking back now, I bought into it at arm's length, without process. It was all out there, somewhere, waiting to be taken in, something to be assumed, but never anything to concretely act on. For many Catholics, process is often stumbled upon accidentally, in a sermon, on a retreat, or, as in my case, God provided the process Himself. Somewhere in my high school years I felt a strong challenge from what I could only call Someone-not-me. Did I really believe all I had been taught in twelve years of Catholic education about Jesus' death and resurrection? Did I want that personal relationship with God? Did I want to spend the rest of my life living in that relationship and everything that may mean? Answering these questions was my process, and life for me was different from then on.

Fast forward 17 years...

I was now married, living in Rochester, New York, attending a Catholic church and involved in a Catholic Charismatic prayer group. Our group, though distinctly Catholic, rubbed shoulders regularly with the other denominations in the city, going so far as to cancel our regular prayer meeting once a month to go and pray with some of the other churches for revival for Rochester. It was, therefore, no surprise to us that a short time later, the Billy Graham crusade was invited to give a crusade in Rochester. Also, a bit more of a surprise to some, but not to us praying Catholics, was how enthusiastically the Catholic bishop of our diocese got behind the crusade. In a letter to be read at mass in all the churches on a Sunday before the crusade, the bishop encouraged all Catholics who were able to attend the crusade to do so, that what Billy Graham had to say needed to be heard by everyone. Our parish promptly put out sign up sheets and promised to charter buses to the crusade if enough people signed up. The response was so great that the parish ended up chartering one bus for every week night crusade and two buses for each of the two weekend sessions.

Many of my Catholic prayer group friends were involved in the logistics of the crusade, from being prayer counselors during the crusade to hosting followup Bible studies afterward. I had not gotten involved, expecting my third child days before the crusade was to come into town. Still, I wanted to be part of the Billy Graham experience, to see first hand what happens when this man comes to a city. The crusade was to take place at Silver Stadium, an outdoor minor league baseball stadium, home of the Rochester Red Wings.* Could we go to the stadium on one of the crusade days? I wasn't sure that my born-a-Catholic-will-die-a Catholic husband was open to such a decidedly Protestant adventure. But, the bishop had given his permission, and my husband knew I wanted to go, so he happily facilitated the trip to the ball park. We found a sitter for our two older children, packed up our month-old daughter and headed out to the stadium.

I had already “processed” my personal relationship with God, but my husband, a life-long practicing Catholic, had yet to personally grapple with those process questions I had dealt with in my teens. He knew enough about Billy Graham, his message and the format of the crusade to know somewhat to expect. When we arrived at the ball park, my husband pointed to the seats high up in the last row of the stadium. That's where I want to sit, he said. He told me he remembered seeing a crusade on TV, and how Billy Graham, when calling people to come down to the field to acknowledge their decision to accept Christ, would specifically point to those sitting in the very last, highest row of the venue, telling them not to worry, he would wait for them, there would be plenty of time for them to come down. I want to be one of those people, my husband said.

Billy Graham Crusade, Silver Stadium, Rochester, New York, September 1988

The format of the crusade was simple. There was a time of choir-sung worship music, followed by Billy Graham's gospel message. His voice was simultaneously strong yet gentle, showing no evidence he had spent several days before the crusade in a local hospital being treated for a spider bite. His message of God's love, the forgiveness of sin, the promise of eternal life and the personal relationship with Jesus available to all was clear, followed by a call to come forward onto the field for prayer for those who wished to commit their lives to God. Those who came forward were prayed for as a group by Billy Graham and then individually with one of many trained counselors, given a copy of the gospel of John, and given information about follow-up Bible studies available at local churches. True to his word, my husband was one of those people who came down from the last, highest row to the field of the stadium to formally commit his life to God, accompanied by his wife and infant daughter. In the not-so-random way of God's serendipity, a counselor on the field approached my chemist husband, they exchanged pleasantries and found they both had science backgrounds. They talked, they prayed together, and then the counselor handed my husband the gospel of John and a small book with steps (more process) on how to grow in one's relationship with God. With your scientific mind, he told him, this will all make sense to you if you study it. He did, and it did. In the weeks that followed the crusade, my husband attended one of the follow-up Bible studies, hosted by our Catholic parish. He grew in his new (renewed?) relationship with God. We were now together in the demographic of Catholic born-again Christians.

Billy Graham passed away last week. He was 99 years old, and it is estimated that he had preached to 2.2 billion people in his lifetime, counting radio and television audiences as well as in-person crusade attenders. It is believed that 3.2 million of those hearing Billy Graham's message responded by accepting Jesus Christ as their personal savior. These millions come from all walks of life, different religious backgrounds, including no religious background at all. God provided the forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life for them all. Billy Graham simply delivered the message of that forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life and the process to grab hold of it and make it one's own. Millions of people are grateful for that, my husband and I being two of them...

Just as I am - without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

-O Lamb of God, I come!

- From the Billy Graham Crusade hymn Just As I Am

*The most famous person to appear at Silver Stadium before Billy Graham was Cal Ripken, Jr. He spent the 1981 baseball season as the third baseman for the Red Wings when it was a minor league team for the Baltimore Orioles.