Wednesday, October 11, 2006
the archivers syndrome
I once said that archivers really, really bugs me. The reason is this – in today’s society there is a huge market for preservation and ‘making it last.’ A move against the idea that we are ‘dust’ in the wind and trying to change the clay are made out of into rock or even gold
I am sorry folks we are clay and there is nothing that can be done about it. The only way clay lasts is if we fire it and even then it is questionable. Nothing made in this fallen world lasts. Nothing – we don’t last so why do we expect the work of our hands to last.
I spend a lot of time thinking about this because I make things. Sometimes I am okay with sending it out in the world and saying it will last for the time allotted it and that is good. But other times I get all wrapped up in will it last – and is it strong – and will someone remember. This is not good. When I am honest with myself and I think about what comes down to us from centuries before us – I realize it is a small fraction and it is only by God’s grace that great works of art make it. Do you remember the libraries in Alexandria – gone. Maybe we didn’t need to know what was in them0 What about the pyramids? They are a sign of something a Christian cannot believe in...to me it must be that God set them up as a testimony – yes these building last but what of the people only “I AM eternal.”
There is nothing wrong with telling one’s story. Just don’t expect it to last forever or be important to people in the future. It is important to God but we are temporal and until we are perfected and with God the work of our hands will not last unless God has some purpose for them, which necessitates that our work always seek to reflect and honor him.
Don't lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don't break through and steal;for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6: 19-21
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