Restoration

I had a favorite shirt that always hung by the stove at home. It was the casual, comfortable shirt that I would slip on when I was just hanging around the house and needed to add another layer. But, as it happens, over the course of time it wore out. When I showed it to Florence she took it and headed for the rag bag saying, “If I was my mother I would take all of the buttons off of it and put them in a tin.” And I remembered my mom’s button can which was really cool when I was a kid.

Back in the day, I’m quite certain that every mom had a button tin. I don’t think it’s common anymore but back then it was a given. The reason for it I think was quite simple – how could you ever even think of throwing away a perfectly good button? You never know when you’re going to need one! ‘Waste not – want not’ was the motto of the day for sure. I’m from the generation that watched my mother save the wax paper from the shredded wheat packets so she could use them to wrap our sandwiches for school. How many of you can relate?

It’s a different day for sure. Today, we live in a much more ‘disposable’ society. I know that to some degree it is inevitable. Things change and technology moves us along. It becomes cheaper to replace something than to fix it. I understand that. And I don’t really think very many of us today are prepared to say good-bye to tissue paper and go shopping for a 'hanky' instead. But I can’t help but feel that there is just something wrong with our willingness to dispose of things so readily and to just buy new. When are we being practical and when are we only capitulating to the consumer culture of convenience?

There is something to be said for the task of restoring something that’s old. I found an old jack knife in some of my dad’s stuff a few years back. It was corroded quite badly but something compelled me to go to work and see what I could do with it. I’m sure I could have purchased a new one for far less than the ‘sweat equity' I put into restoring that old pocket knife and it still doesn’t look quite like new. But I actually like it better because somehow it just means more. Not just because it was my dad’s either though that is part of it.

One of the books that I have on my summer reading list that I’m looking forward to getting into is ‘Broken Down House’ by Paul Tripp. In the book he relates how excited his father-in-law was when he bought an old broken down house. He was having a hard time understanding the man’s enthusiasm until he came to understand that his joy was found in the prospect of all he could do to fix it up. He goes on to say how much we are like that broken down house. I’m really glad that God is into restoration.