Tag Archives: yard sales

A Jumble of Peace

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I am not a fan of yard sales, except of course, that I sort of am.

I wouldn’t stop into one in my neighborhood, because really, there is nothing that I need. And most the stuff I want I don’t need and probably can’t afford. I’m unlikely to find that at yard sales.

But my faith community has two of these a year. They bracket my sabbatical/vacation. They are huge and chaotic. I’m sort of chaotic myself, so I find them incredibly distracting. I dropped in the other day when people were working. The only things I could see were the things of my sister’s that I’d given away. I didn’t have a lot of interest in seeing them.

But we have them and they do a jumble of things. They let people let go of things. People like me take stuff that we’ve held onto from our dearly beloved and release it. People who need things but can’t afford them can sometimes get incredible bargains. Or they can get some little luxury that they didn’t imagine they could afford, but there it is with a $2 price tag on it. And people with collections find that one thing they’ve been searching for. And other people, well, they just can’t resist a bargain. And they shop. And in the meantime, the people from our community get to know one another. We do physical work that makes our community stronger as it strengthens our connections. And we make money that helps our community meet our obligations. We can even make plans with some of this money. That’s pretty exciting.

It really is a jumble of things that come from this huge jumble of things. It’s probably well worth a bit of pastoral confusion. After all, it’s never just my Peace at stake, is it?

But, oh, my goodness, what a lot of mayhem — but oh, such great food!

EverydayPeaceFriday36Sept2

A Day of Shared Work is a Day of Peace

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Working together is important. When you can work together and laugh together at the same time, life is sweet.

Shared purpose brings Peace.

For two months now a dedicated team has been working to put together this huge extravaganza of a yard sale that takes place for five days. (thank heavens for a sabbath in between! whew!)

Friday morning at 6:45 am I rolled in LONG after others had been working to get things set up.

The doors were supposed to open at 8. They opened at 7 and people came pouring in.

Now, if you know me at all, you know I’m an extreme extrovert with an incredibly chaotic mind. This much chaos is over load for me. But people are so excited. Oooooh! look at this! Imagine! All day long, people thrilled over the bargains.

And all day long, community members are helpful and enjoying themselves. You have the chance to get to know people you’ve never known as you check out customers, or dish up hamburger barbecue. (Oh, we laughed: a woman started to tell us about her business helping people make life style changes with resultant weight loss, by cutting out gluten and sugar. Meanwhile we were all stuffing hotdogs in our faces, and following them up with homemade black walnut brittle chasers… she didn’t get any clients today at the yard sale — unless after the sale is over we all feel badly about all the cookies we ate! Just another way friendships are built!)

But it was flat out fun today, because the people are grand. Poor Marie tries to organize us and manages despite our camraderie and general ineptitude at sales. Meanwhile people keep buying stuff and we move toward balancing the budget. And it’s not all about the money, although that’s its purpose, it’s also about people’s buying things they can’t otherwise afford: dishes and pots and pans disappear pretty quickly. Clothes find their way home to people who need them (and, ahem, some of us who don’t!)

Building solvency. Building community. Eating good food! Yum! Fun! Peace.

Peace is where you find it. It’s where you make it. Say, can I get you a bag for your stuff?

EverydayPeaceSaturday27Jul2

 

Really? Sledge Hammer Peace?

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It made me laugh really. Ann and sledge hammer in the same sentence. Ann with a sledge hammer in her hands. Don’t tell my brother or my nephew, they might injure themselves laughing…

Now, to be fair, it wasn’t back up over my head, being swung to put in a railroad spike. No grunts needed for impact. We were whacking at the spikes to loosen them up so that they could be pulled up after someone else had been out there swinging to put the tent spikes in the ground.

But I was tool using, nonetheless…

Of course the fact that i was the youngest of the geriatrics cleaning up post yard sale… meant I was likely to have a look-in. But still. And I’m upright today. Without bruises. Pretty good, I’d say…

Tell no one, I enjoyed myself, Tool Usin’ Mama that I am!

Peace, folks, and relax, the only tool I’m using today is a computer — and maybe a car.

FruitMoonLunacySep10