Your Study is on Fire

and you only have time to grab a box or two of books and papers (or worse, maybe one or two books). Which ones would you choose and why?

With good reason the Malibu fires have been front and center the last few days. On the drive in (made painfully slow this morning by the first rain we've had in months) I thought about what it must be like to have to decide what to pack in a car trunk or backseat as you abandon your home and its contents.

Assuming that Laura and the girls are safe, I wonder what I would, if I could, do about all our blasted stuff.

Truth be told, I have no deep sentimental attachment to our house. I feel the same way about most everything in it, with very few exceptions. Of all the furniture we own, we only purchased one piece (an antique couch for our living room, and that a fabulous deal). There are about 5 pieces of furniture that hold sentimental value to either or both Laura and I. We have a few things that are important to us, but they are important because of who gave it to us or what it means in intangible terms to us and our girls; but the rest is filler I could easily live without.

My books, though, are a different story. Having inherited about 500 items (books, periodicals, and tracts) of Restoration material, I admit to no mean anxiety over being compelled to choose from among them.

At or near the top of the list would be a copy of Alexander Campbell's Lectures on the Pentateuch inscribed by my great-great grandfather in 1867. I have a few volumes with my great-grandfather's and grandfather's notes inscribed within. I have some portraits and photographs I would grieve over if lost. There are some textbooks with my own notes inside (which are not at all valuable aside from the memories they hold and courses and colleagues they represent). I have a few hundred handwritten sermons from KC Ice and MC Ice.

The rest of my library took a long time to acquire, were a joy to acquire, and remains a privilege to own and read and study. But I could manage without them (I would hope so). There are any number of books I'd love to keep, but the ones I'd grieve over are special not because they are rare or valuable or in super condition (though I have some that are all the above), but they are special for other, deeper, reasons.

The images of Malibu puts in perspective our worst materialistic tendencies. At the same time, already we are hearing stories of heroism, sacrifice and service. If we are patient we will see emerge before us and within us reminders of those things which fire cannot destroy. And if we are discerning, those things which distract us will become more and more perspectivized and we will see them as they are: of little true worth. And finally, if we are wise, we will cling all the more tenaciously to the former even as we shed ourselves of the latter.

And so to bed.