If you visit our house, you'll find a lot of old things. We have a vintage stereo setup in our living room with plenty of old vinyl records to go with it. We have pieces of old furniture and stacks of old books. I have an old (older than me) truck parked out back, and I even have some clothes in my wardrobe that belonged to my grandpa. We don't just let our old items serve as novelties, we actually use them.
Now, before you start thinking we’re stuck in the past, let me assure you that we are fully aware of the space we occupy on the calendar. For example, I’m writing this right now on a smartphone. We drive a minivan. We stream movies online (new ones in addition to our heavy dose of old ones). We own vinyl records from current artists, and we even buy some music online. I wear brand new clothes along with my retro stuff.
The reason we have old things around is not just because we like old things. That's definitely part of it, but there are some other very specific reasons.
For one thing, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the further our society goes down the road of consumerism, the further the level of product quality seems to dip. It’s really kind of pathetic if you stop and look around. I realize there are pockets of people that are bringing quality back, but those pockets are small and the products being produced are typically quite expensive. I don’t mind paying for quality, but that doesn’t mean I can always afford it. When I buy old things, I can often get greater quality by sacrificing trendiness and convenience. Sign me up for that!
So, affordability is one reason, but the big, front and center reason we keep old things around has to do with something much more philosophical. It's something I like to call “historical relevance”.
What I mean by historical relevance is the idea of asking yourself if you could have hypothetically survived in a different time era. I’m talking about things like occupation, entertainment, comfort/contentment, food/drink, clothing, transportation; and the list goes on. The question is, are you living in such a way that if all your current accoutrements were taken away, would you just collapse as a human or would you more or less continue functioning with a few tweaks and adjustments? Am I propped up by all my modern conveniences, or do I have historical relevance?
Let's take it a step further. As a Christian, am I historically relevant or is my faith being held up by a bunch of modern accessories? Could my faith stand up if the power was out and none of my devices would work? How about if I didn't even have a printed copy of the Bible at my disposal? As a modern Christian, it's sometimes hard to fathom that there will be many centuries worth of Christians in eternity who never even owned a Bible.
The truth is, an enduring, historically relevant faith is based on a literal relationship with the personal, knowable, God of the universe.
To be clear, I think podcasts, Bible apps, recorded worship music, and volumes upon volumes of great devotional/instructional books (and audiobooks) are wonderful tools that can be useful in moderation. Modern conveniences are a wonderful blessing and we would be crazy not to benefit from them. I'm only saying that I think it's wise, especially in our spiritual lives, to keep in touch with the basic elements of our human experience.
I realize that having old things in our house doesn't just guarantee that we'll stay in touch with all of this, but I do know they serve to remind us of this concept on a daily basis, and that's a big part of why we keep them around.
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