Is it Valuable?

I've gone through an extensive internship the past year or so.  My training has been thorough.  But, I have to say, the personal struggle with learning, repetition and practice have made the difference in being more of a master.

The craft I refer to, is the skill of being able to distinguish between solid gold and false gold.  The value in the two isn't that difficult to find.  Sinking my teeth into it, looking at it closely or just holding it in my hands, seems to work.  The broad spectrum of value in-between the two, becomes wide.  It's not an easy footbridge to cross when it's suspended between the two shores and it's swinging back and forth.  Important judgment decisions become harder to make.

Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Kiev Patriarchate

Describing this skill, I picture the footbridge at the mouth of the Two-Hearted River in the Upper Peninsula that crosses to the beautiful Lake Superior shore.  It's not very long.  It has wooden slats set on top of rope.  It's suspended about thirty feet above the dark red current of the Two-Hearted River.  Both sides of the bridge have beautiful white sand greeting you when you cross.  It's relatively simple to cross over from the campground side to the Lake Superior shore side.  Enchanting.  The return is harder.  Coming across with pockets, bags and hands loaded with smooth beach rocks, weighing a lot more than when I crossed.  The bridge seems to sway more with the return.  Once it starts swaying, I overcompensate and make the swaying worse.  I seem to hang on tighter to my stones and my body starts shifting back and forth.

Big Stump in the Shade on Schuss Lane

I get the same feeling when I'm deciding whether to keep something or let it go.  Especially when I selling my home.  It was easy accumulating things in my home over the years.  It wasn't so smooth when I had to turn around and go back over the bridge.  Many times, I knew what value I placed on things.  But, in the learning process, I still had to go through sinking my teeth into it, clinging to it tighter, holding it in my hands, and studying it, before I could make a final decision. 

Keepsakes of Personal Value

I wanted to turn around on that precarious bridge, hang on to my home, keep all my possessions and not cross.  I would still be in house on Schuss Lane if I hadn't left most of those stones on the beach and crossed without them.  I had to decide what was more valuable.  Was it my freedom to start a new life?  Or was it more precious to stay in a big, quiet, lonely house, surrounded by each and every one of my possessions.

The term "valuable" is complicated.  It takes training and an internship to get a closer understanding.  I made many mistakes.  I made good choices.  I became more experienced.  As a novice, I had to humble myself and admit value is often a shaky walk across a rickety bridge.  Was the gold soft?  What type of sheen did it have for me?  Was the weight was too much for me to carry?  Could I melt it down to something that was designed differently and had a better fit?  These and hundreds of other questions, I wrote in my little book.  I thought I could write the answers in the space I left, as I grew more knowledgeable.  

There are no answers.  None I can share.  It's a personal journey.  I can give some questions that might help to shave down the process.  I can't give anyone answers.

Priceless

So, now, my journey will be in applying the questions I've acquired.  I trust they will to help me make decisions on the many tremulous walkways I'll continue to encounter.     

What do you value?

What makes you stop to pick something up or look at it?

Is it personal value you place for it or society's?

How often will you use it?  Or is it a novelty?

Has it been passed down through the family?  Is it a family keepsake or just yours?

Does your memory suffice or do you need the object to hold the memory?

Does it make you smile?  Does it make you cry?

Do you feel joy with it or pain?

Do you want approval from others for keeping it or your own satisfaction?

Is its value in dollars?  

Is it priceless to you?

Can a picture of it makes you smile as much as the real item?

Is it a reminder of your purpose and sacred journey in life?

Did you subtract the amount of burden from the value you place on it?

More questions can be generated from quotes, so I share these three with you.

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness     John Ruskin (1819-1900)

If we keep treating our most important values as meaningless relics, that's exactly what they'll become.  Michael Josephson

It is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.  Vida D. Scudder

Old Mt. Carmel, Gaylord, Michigan
(small nest in left-hand corner of cross)