Stewardship

Connie Du Toit has a piece up on stewardship. Its long and rambles a bit, but its good stuff. Her point is that we are stewards, but what we have is for us to use and enjoy.

I don't have a lot of stuff to pass down to my as yet unborn children. I have my FN Hi-Power and I'll probably have a few more guns to add to it. I have a good sword. It should survive me as well. My kids might like that shirt of maille I've been working on.

The rest is pretty utilitarian. My plates are not expensive china, they're just corell because I use them. My flatware is just stainless. I use that too. My computer and car will be ancient before my kids can ever use them. Most of my furniture is inexpensive particle board stuff.

On the other hand that doesn't mean my kids won't value any of them. I once gave My Girl a little knot made of vinylester resin left over from an experiment I did in grad school. Its worthless, just a little bit of scrap left in an injection line but she keeps it in her purse like I had made it from pure gold. I do the same with my kitchen table, its the one I ate dinner off of every night growing up. Its nothing special, but its family. Maybe my kids will be like that too.

Pretty soon I will be inheriting a gun from my Grandfather. It will probably be his Remington 870 12 gauge or his Sears 20 gauge. He was a deer and bird hunter. I'm not a hunter but I'll shoot some clays with it anyway. I might have to change the choke on it to suit the sport, but other than that it stays the way I receive it. Someday it may break, but it'll still have its place of honor in the cabinet whether it works or not.