Thrifting As a Spiritual Experience?

One of my hobbies is Thrift Store shopping.

On the surface, the pleasure seems obvious. The thrill of the hunt, the love of a good bargain, and sustainable shopping.

It occurred to me recently, as I was going through a box of random old photos of strangers at a local Goodwill, that there is so much more to it than that for me.

In the Western world, we spend much of our lives accumulating stuff. We assign mean-ing and value to a lot of our things beyond their monetary worth. In some ways, being surrounded by objects distracts us from the reality of impermanence.

The truth is, nothing is permanent, and a lot of our stuff will be around long after we are not.

Sorting through old pictures, paintings, hand-made art, jewelry and old furniture some-how brings me comfort.

I feel, in an odd way, like these things have some of the energy of their previous own-ers. I imagine people I will never know and lifetimes I will never experience.

Somehow, in some way, it reminds me that we are a small piece of a larger whole. Hon-oring and giving another life to an old item continues the circle.

I'm reminded of the quote from the movie "One Hour Photo", in which Sy Parrish, played by Robin Williams says, "And if these pictures have anything important to say to future generations, it's this: I was here. I existed. I was young, I was happy, and some-one cared enough about me in this world to take my picture."

Will that quote hold up in the future, when we are gone?

In this digital age, there will likely no longer be boxes of old photos. The selfie is quickly replacing the notion "...and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture."

Does it matter? Likely not. Photos fade, papers disintegrate, everything eventually turns to do dust.

Maybe I am just as guilty of fooling myself by surrounding myself with other peoples' things as I accuse them of being by accumulating them in the first place.

Who knows.

What I do know, is almost anything can be treated with reverence. In a world that it is often noisy, busy and filled with distraction, it is important to honor the slivers of spiritu-ality we find, no matter how small.