What Labyrinth taught me about stuff.

Labyrinth was one of my very favorite movies as a child. It still ranks pretty high on my list. The film has a haunting sort of quality that grabs you and doesn't let go. If you've seen it, you know what I mean. The first time I saw it I was babysitting alone at my Aunt Mary & Uncle Rick's house. I was probably twelve or thirteen. If I close my eyes now I can conjuer up that moment and remember how I felt. Scared. A little creeped out by the David Bowie character. But connected to the film in way that I had never experienced before. I felt like some of the lessons that the main character, Sarah, was learning along the way were lessons for me. Lessons about not trying to escape life by pretending and hiding inside books. Lessons about unlikely friendship. Lessons about valuing people over stuff.

There is a moment toward the end of the movie that replays in my mind whenever I'm going through the things I own and trying to decide what to keep and what to give away -- what to value and what to discard. Sarah has come most of the way through the Labyrinth towards the Goblin King's castle to rescue her baby brother, and she finds herself suddenly back in her own room with all the toys of her childhood. All the toys and things that she has never been willing to part with, never even been willing to share with her brother. These are the things that Sarah thinks define her. The things she hangs onto for comfort. For a moment you really believe that she's back home, but then a little old goblin woman comes in the room and starts piling Sarah's favorite things on her lap. She says something like this: "Oh, here are all your pretty things. Here's your horsey, you need your horsey don't you?" She goes on and on, bringing Sarah all the things that the young girl (so far) has loved most in her life. She piles them on her and for awhile, Sarah looks happy. It seems like the trick is about to work. It seems like Sarah will forget about her brother as she sits there clutching her growing pile of things. But suddenly it's like someone has thrown a switch and Sarah wakes up. She dumps the pile on the ground and starts yelling. "It's all just junk!" she says. The walls of the room crumble away to reveal that she isn't home at all. She's in the middle of a junk yard. In that moment Sarah learns what's really important to her. And she runs off to save her brother.

The image of those crumbling walls giving way to the lanscape of a junkyard have stayed with me. Just the thought of collecting more stuff makes me clostraphobic. I am constantly combing through and trying to get rid of more things. I long for a simplified life without stuff piling up around me. Stuff is a burden. And when you collect enough of it, it becomes a burden on other people too. (Have you ever helped move someone who can't let go of their stuff?)

It's not just about money. Many of the things people collect are not expensive. My beef with stuff is not just about wasting money. It's about losing freedom. It's about the hoarding mentality. It's about focus, time, and energy that stuff steals from us. Managing stuff takes a lot of work. And finding the one thing you need in the pile of things you don't can suck up your day. It's about excess. And about letting go of that which you cannot keep in order to find what you cannot loose.

There are definitely things I like, things I want to save. But I also know that if I lost everything in a fire or a flood today I could go forward and still be the person I am without all those things. In fact, I might even turn into someone better. I have the sense that, in some ways, the things I own tend to pile up between me and God. And everytime I make the pile a little smaller, I feel a little closer to him.