Lift Up Your Hearts!

I loathe rummage sales. Garage sales, tag sales, used-book sales, eBay listings, charitable donations, call them what you want—if they involve putting anything of mine out for others to paw through and judge, I come out of the process feeling defeated, dirty, and discouraged.

Granted, such entities serve a useful purpose. So do sewage treatment plants. Our lives and our homes must be regularly tidied up, and it's good there are alternatives to storing our stuff till it moulders, or heaving it directly into a landfill. And in theory it's a great idea: you sell/donate to a a good cause something you no longer need, and instead of being discarded it blesses someone else. Sounds good. But....

I think it began with Wormy. Back when our daughter was very young (I'm guessing kindergarten, or earlier), our then-church was collecting toys for children. Their appeal made a big impression on her, and she picked out one of her stuffed animals to give to "a poor child who has no toys." Later, she was very sad because she missed Wormy a lot. We dealt with it, and she survived, but to this day I blame the church leaders for actively encouraging little children to make such sacrifices—and myself for allowing it. Particularly since I later learned that organizations that give toys to children are not really interested in used toys no matter how much love and sacrifice they represent. They only want new-in-box, tags-on toys, or cold-hearted cash with which to buy them. In some ways I can see the point, that children who already feel second-hand should not have to make do with second-hand toys—but I also can't help feeling that it takes love out of the equation.

Back in World War II, households were asked to provide metal "for the war effort," giving up precious pots and pans so that their sons serving overseas could have the aircraft and ammunition they needed. The recording industry even gave up irreplaceable, original recordings to the scrap drives. And for what? A small amount of the material collected helped a bit, but most, it appears, was of no use—meaning your great-grandmother's sacrifice was just wasted. The point, we're now told, was to make the population feel more involved in the war effort, to buy into it, and to believe that they were actively helping to keep their boys alive. I call that criminal deception.

It's okay to ask people to make sacrifices. But to no point? That's just wrong.

Many, many years ago I looked at the books overflowing our shelves and decided it was selfish to keep so many books in our own home when we could donate them to the library and make them available to everyone. After all, even though I love to re-read books, I rarely need them handy at all times; as long as I could check them out of the library at will, that would be fine.

You are all laughing at me for being so naïve. But it came as a true shock to discover that my beloved books were not on the shelves to be checked out, but had been sold (for pennies!) at a library fundraiser. I haven't quite gotten over that. I still donate books to the library, but with a heavy heart and a feeling more of amputation than of the relief that's supposed to accompany "decluttering" a household. Also, our shelves still bulge, because I'm now exceedingly reluctant to get rid of an old book I might want to read again. Modern libraries don't want to carry on the function of providing books that are otherwise difficult to obtain, preferring to stock books that are recently-published and in high demand.

When we moved from a four-bedroom house to a small apartment, we tried to give away our excess furniture. No one wanted it. They would only take furniture in pristine condition, for resale. Our daughter, who lived in Pittsburgh, said it was it was a pity we didn't live near a university. In her neighborhood, furniture left at the curb, no matter how worn, was quickly snapped up by students. But in Central Florida, apparently, no one is poor enough to want someone else's couch.

Have you ever tried to "clothe the naked"? Given the shirt off your back to someone in need? Do you know what often happens to donated clothing? It's not given to someone who needs a shirt—it's sold, in bulk. Maybe someone, somewhere, eventually wears it, or maybe it ends up shredded for other purposes. In any case, it's not what you gave it up for.

But enough of the memories dredged up as I pondered the most recent incident, and back to rummage sales.

I am not generally a hoarder (books may be an exception), and not particularly selfish when it comes to things. (Don't ask about how selfish I am with respect to time. That's a terrible struggle for me.) I can give up a treasure to a good home—to someone who will love and appreciate it. But that's not, I've found, what generally happens at rummage sales. It's a lesson I have to learn over and over again.

The particular event that inspired these morose thoughts was a benefit for our church's Kairos Torch Ministry, which makes a difference in the lives of incarcerated young people. I did not have the stomach to work the sale itself, but we were there to help with the setup, at 6:30 Saturday morning, and the cleanup when it was over.

As usually happens at such sales, everything was priced far under value. I've become somewhat reconciled to that: 45 years of being married to an economist have made me understand the stark monetary equation that an item's value is precisely what someone is willing to pay for it. When a brand-new man's shirt with the tags still attached is priced at $1, and the buyer insists on paying half that, the hard truth is that it's only worth 50 cents.

What I find harder to believe is the people who will drive such a bargain at a charity fundraiser. Not to mention the light-fingered customers who come through and slip pieces of jewelry into their pockets, even when the price marked is only a quarter! Except for the tireless work and quiet cheerfulness of the volunteers, I have not found rummage sales to be encouraging about the nature of humanity.

Worse is when items don't sell, even at such deep discounts. After the sale was over, we "gathered the fragments," took the unsold books to the Friends of the Library, and turned the rest over to the local Goodwill site. So there's a possibility the items will eventually find a good home; I cling to that.

Nonetheless, my overall impression is that there is a large disconnect between our family and modern society. Is no one poor enough to appreciate the books, furniture, and household items we have loved but can do without? If I believed that, it would be good news, but instead I just feel awful. Almost exactly the same way I feel when I look at all the plastic and Styrofoam waste that enwraps nearly everything I buy, including our food.

Fortunately, I find writing therapeutic. Thanks to this post and a great church service yesterday—plus, I confess, a bag of potato chips—I have largely recovered from Saturday's depression. I comfort myself with the thought that Kairos Torch did gain from the sale (whether it was worth the effort is another question, and one I can't answer), and in the knowledge that many of the items we had contributed did sell, presumably to people who will appreciate them.

If nothing else, our house at least has a little more elbow room now. The night before, I actually felt pretty good. I'll probably participate in the same rummage sale again next year, perhaps—this time—with more realistic expectations.