Several weeks ago, another author wrote an article here that I enjoyed a lot. In fact, I’ve caught myself thinking about it several times, and have referred back to the post often. It was about trash and all of the things that can become of our broken pieces if we can just let them go, let them find a new place in the world. If you haven’t read this post, you should go do it now. It’s fantastic.
A few years back, I heard a talk by Shayne M. Bowen that also addressed the topic of trash. In this talk, Shayne told of both an airport and a park in Idaho Falls, ID, which were once the sites of sanitary landfills. Utilized by hundreds and even thousands of people each year, these places have been beautifully reclaimed, the garbage successfully buried and forgotten about. Shayne then asks what would happen if someone were to try to return to one of these sites and start digging, looking for the trash that he/she had provided to the landfill.
Obviously such an idea is ridiculous! Why would anyone want to blemish the beauty of the finished ground just to dig up old trash, refuse that was cast aside many years before? Think also about the children of the Landfill Harmonic orchestra and their treasured instruments. What if you or I were to come to these children asking them to return some of the pieces, claiming that it was trash that belonged to us? The returned item would have little—if any—value to us after being detached from the refurbished instrument, but would destroy the dreams of the one we had taken it from.
For your amusement, here are some semi-famous characters taking back their own trash at the expense of someone who had transformed the items into a better whole:
The point here is that once we’ve thrown out our trash (our mistakes, our shortcomings, our feelings of regret, remorse, and heartbreak), we must let it all go. I believe, as Hilary so beautifully states in her article, that “The whole earth is conspiring to remind us that even the things that evaporate, rot, break, crumble, grow stagnant, or die are transformed into beauty” and that, “Nothing, nothing is wasted.”
HOWEVER, we must allow this garbage time and space to be transformed in whatever way it will. We cannot constantly revisit the old, ragged spoils of our past with sharpened shovels and pickaxes in hand. We must forgive ourselves and look for the good that has grown from the compost.
Similarly, we must learn to forgive others of their own trash. Remember, our faults are not the only rotten and smelly things that the earth will devour up and return then return with roses. Others’ trash can be molded into something masterful just as easily as yours or mine. Do not destroy their little spot of reclaimed land. Forgive them, and move on. Enjoy the world and all that has been created in spite of—and many times because of—the messes we all make.