Attics and Lilies

Photo: Pexels.com

There is a splendid open space off I-24 covered with gorgeous wild flowers each spring. For the last 10 years, I’d exit off the fast pace of the freeway and take a few minutes to soak in that natural beauty. Didn’t make it this year and since I never stopped by in autumn, I wondered how it looked in a different season.


Last week I stopped.

At first, it seemed I missed the exit. Turning around and getting back on the freeway, I tried two other exits and finally went back to the first exit I had tried.

ORANGE.

Everything was orange.

Staring in disbelief at the hundreds of single “attics” the sign read, “Climate controlled extra storage for your overflow.” This beautiful field had been transformed into a place for all our extra JUNK!

Whatever happened to real attics and basements? Do we have so much stuff now that our huge houses can’t contain all our material goods?

The previous week I had spent time trying to find affordable beds so four children wouldn’t have to sleep in the same bed. Some of us combed Salvation Army and Goodwill looking for pots and pans for another family. I couldn’t help but thinking of overflowing rented attics and these people having almost nothing.

Sitting in my car and still in disbelief, I wondered if we have become so materialistic that we build these extra storage houses for things we may forget we have. I know that happens with attics. How much more would it happened with detached attics? I have a dream that all these “extra attics” will be open to the poor and they can come and get what they need. Anything.

Then I thought about the Lilies of the Field.

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.

Looks like our lilies are orange, detached symbols of our stuff and what we’ve become.

Pat Pickett, OblSB