My desk supports a whole, incoherent museum of treasures that are important to me. There are model cars from my boyhood; my Dad’s pen; sundry rocks; a leather tray from Wyoming. None of it ostensibly makes sense but all of it means something.
Now, in September, my sister-in-law, Mandy and her grownup children, Adam and Sophie, came to stay with us, and for a month or so I didn’t even see my desk, or any of the treasures that make it home. This is not a complaint – it was a treat to have them, all the way from Australia – but it was nice this week to get back to working in the place I like to work, at the table I like to work at.
And it was nice to see my familiar treasures; and some unfamiliar because, there, tucked away on a shelf next to my desk, was something I’d saved and treasured and then completely forgotten.
It was a bag of ham crisps.
Now, ham crisps are not crisps. They’re packaged like crisps. But they’re ham. And they’re delicious.
But these were very old ham crisps.
Santa brought me these ham crisps at Christmas 2020.
Now, as is universal, Santa deploys an army of little helpers at ours, to ensure that the elderly are not forgotten, and those helpers are my very own Miriam, Esther and Silas.
They are magnificent Santa-proxies and bring magnificent treasures, so sometimes I save them. And, for reasons I cannot precisely articulate, I saved the ham crisps.
Now, Jesus once said that ‘Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also’, and when I look at my desk, I see that this is true. My heart is in the memory of my childhood. My heart is in the places and people I love, by whose tokens I am surrounded. I reckon all of us human people, keep bits and pieces to mark out our lives, tiny reminders of who we are and what we treasure.
But although these things are important, the reminder is never as precious as the treasure itself.
So, I chose to be reminded that Miriam, Esther and Silas are my treasures, and I ate the very old ham crisps.
It was a good choice.
Because Miriam, Esther and Silas truly are treasures.
And the ham crisps? Well.
They were disgusting.