A question that made me think

There's a YouTube channel I enjoy, called Sven's One Bag Life.

This afternoon I was watching a video on this channel, in which Sven was discussing the possibility that a one-bag lifestyle might not be as extreme as people tend to think. I'll leave his video at the bottom of this blog post in case you think you too might like to listen to what he has to say.

In the course of the video, he asked a question that I found arrestingly intriguing — so much so that I stopped listening to him for a while because I was thinking about his question.

Now, I expect that you — like me — have on various occasions been in groups of one kind or another where someone has asked what you would grab to take with you if the house was burning down.

Since the answer is obviously the kids and the pets, but if they have already got out before you then anyone in their right mind would take the keys for the car and house, their wallet with cards and ID, a warm top layer and a pair of shoes, their phone and their specs, the question is fairly redundant. Any person who stopped to gather up their wedding photo album, their mother's jewellery and their knitting project, would probably inadvertently collect their Darwin Award as well. So it's an irritating question.

But that's not what Sven asked.

He said, if you had to leave home, and had only thirty minutes to pack one bag, what would you take?

Clearly, an organisational window of thirty minutes is a very different proposition from fleeing a burning building in a panic.

It made me think — not only of what I would take, but (crucially) what I would decide to leave behind, and why.

This is what I thought.

• I would take the small essentials that would apply to the burning building scenario — the ID, the wallet, the keys, my phone (and charger), and my spectacles.
• I would dress in my most versatile clothes and wear the shoes that work for the most situations. And I'd include a second outfit (underwear, t-shirt, trousers, sweater) plus a gilet and hat and gloves in case I got cold.
• I'd take the natural meds that keep my system working well. 
• My computer is small, neat and portable, so I'd take that (and its charger).
• I might add in my water bottle and my bedside light (it's only about the size of a shot glass or large egg cup) and charger.

If time permitted I might empty my jewellery box into a small bag and take that too.

The challenge Sven makes in his video is, why wouldn't you do that anyway? Don't wait for the house to burn down or the imperative to quit the place after thirty minutes prep.

I do have reasons. The first is that living my own home costs a great deal less than paying for accommodation and eating out. The second and related reason is that I am a fairly old lady and I well know what an expense of spirit and money goes in to reinventing oneself. At this point, if I had to start again with nothing I expect I'd come up with a plan, but I'd rather not.

Sven has no intention of living in a shop doorway or kipping on a park bench. He expects to have the benefits of an electric kettle and a bed with sheets, towels in the shower room and somewhere nice to sit down and eat his breakfast — it's just that he's opting for the footloose and fancy-free version. I am happy with the sheets, towel, kettle, bed, table and chairs I have here. My experience is that staying in a budget hotel overnight, if you are including dinner, lunch and breakfast, will probably set me back quite a bit  — £67 per night for a Travelodge room, and perhaps I could cover food with, say £30 if I bought some bits to eat in my room. Well that's £100 before I even start on travel costs. Whereas a government old age pension and writing Christian fiction gives me all I need to cover my own outgoings and Clarence the cat's, and substantially help a couple of other people, it would nowhere near cover that kind of nomadic lifestyle.

So for that reason I'll be staying where I am — not to say Sven's aspirations are unattractive.

But the takeaway for me, in my own circumstances so different from his, was twofold. Firstly, I do still have a lot of impedimenta to sift through — the toolbox, my sewing kit, my stationery box, my stash of natural meds, my physical (non-Kindle) books. I bet I could halve the contents and hardly notice the difference. And then there's the second aspect; things I treasure because they were made for me, and given to me with love. Works of art, knitwear, jewellery, even some small items of furniture.

When I make a purchase, I deliberately choose utilitarian, prosaic, budget range items, or I buy secondhand at a knock-down price. Why? Because I don't hang on to things. I use them for a while, then as life morphs and changes and makes them redundant, I pass them on. But there is a responsibility to owning something made for you by somebody who loves you. The little sets of shelves my husband made for me with care, the earrings Alice and Hebe made me from Kasumi pearls with gold findings, the bangle my youngest child used all her pocket money to buy me when she was seven, the last letter Fr. Tom Cullinan wrote me before he died. Am I going to get rid of those? You bet I'm not!

I do not cling to them, but I honour them.

And yet... there are things I notice in the life of Jesus. He said, "Whoever does not give up everything he has can never be my disciple."

And they "took him into the boat just as he was" and he fell asleep in the cushion in the stern of the boat.

And when, at Capernaum, they were incensed at his preaching and grabbed stones to throw at him, he walked calmly away through the midst of them — he was there, and then he wasn't.

All these speak to me of a life without attachments, a life with no handles, if you see what I mean. It is the place where restraint and self-sacrifice and simplicity and single-minded priority meet.

So I place a firebreak between my heart and these tokens of love I still keep. I cherish them to honour and reverence the relationship they represent; that somebody went out of their way for me, gave of their best for me, and I hold that precious indeed. But if the time ever comes (and of course, one way or another it surely will) to leave these keepsakes behind, I will walk out quietly, at peace.

And you? How do you feel about your belongings, your home, your situation in life? 

Do you yearn to leave it all behind, to be free of the clinging of material possessions? Or do you take comfort in them? Are they, for you, like the moss and feathers the hedgerow birds use to make their nest comfortable and complete?

What would you pack in your thirty-minute bag? 

And if you did have to leave it all behind, would you rebuild as nearly the same as you could manage, or would you take the chance to make radical change?

What does freedom mean to you, and home, and belonging? Where is your identity rooted? And your happiness? To what extent do they depend on expression in material objects?

So many questions have arisen for me from Sven's one artless enquiry — what would you take in your one bag, if you were leaving in thirty minutes?