On a cold Sunday earlier in the year I popped in to Preston church for their family service, and was jolly pleased to find that enterprising parishioners had strapped oil-filled heaters under some of the pews. This meant that whilst seated at least one key part of the anatomy was warm to the touch. However when kneeling, the limbs were not as comfortable as they are at say Pauntley, where previous generations have blessed today’s parishioners with thick hassocks for the weary limbs of the penitent.
The speaker at St John’s Preston told us that we were all likely to have a drawer in our house for junk, and that if we looked in that drawer we would find keys for locks long since lost, bits of string, broken forks, bits that have broken off forgotten kitchen equipment, pieces of blue tack, glue, labels and other things that stick. When I got home and told the wife that every home must have a junk drawer she sniffily replied, “Some of us have got cupboards, rooms and barns full of the stuff.”
That reminded me that earlier in the year a bachelor friend of ours had stayed for a long weekend. Just prior to leaving he announced that he was going to completely redesign the interior of his own home. He declared that he was going to clear out his mind and his living space and make his home minimalist. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said, “I’ve really enjoyed this weekend but your house is definitely clutterist and it has made me determined to get rid of everything I don’t actually need. No pictures, vases, bric or brac or odds and ends. If I’m not using it, it has to go!”
This got me worried and I thought that maybe I am surrounded by too much clutter and junk. Was my minimalist friend right, and would I have to get rid of all the familiar clutter? Fortunately, however, I remembered what two old farmer friends once told me.
The first said that the most important place on the farm was the scrap metal heap, and that this was because it always contains something to bodge up the machine that nobody makes parts for anymore. The second was leaning on the gate looking at our sheep and as we chatted, I said that I enjoyed pottering around the farm buildings to which he sagely replied, “That’s because a man has got to have somewhere to go.”
On reflection therefore, I shall hang on to my junk heap, as it is somewhere to go.
View from the Pew 