Temples and Artifacts

Well, this past week saw the end to a couple of meaningful portions of my life, one personal...one professional.  Both could have been foretold.  My grandfather had to move in with my uncle because of failing health and debilitating progress of age.  We are close, not in much of a way as being similar to all of the members of the family, but rather something unique to the family dynamic.  He lived next to my other uncle and I was able to get to see him when I visited my family home.  Now, he will be more than another hour further away.  He and I shared a same wave length, a same frequency.  While others swirl with gossip and martyrdom, he and I could smile lovingly at each other and know what the other was thinking without having to speak to express our thoughts.  I know that I can experience that again when I visit, unfortunately, it probably much less frequent than it has been.

My partner and I made the difficult decision to close our technical land services business in December.  We had tried to keep it running while the economy tanked, but the numbers were just overwhelming and the work had truly dried up, nothing in the bushes to beat.  After cutting back to bare bones in labor, insurances, etc., we were able to make it through two years of scraping the bottom.  But finally we had to make the decision to close operations.  We went to the bank to begin that sad process.

This weekend, I had the task of beginning the dismantling of both of these remaining temples where I worshipped and found solace.  My grandfather in his nineties had collected what would be expected of lifetime well lived.  My business had all of the information and files expected of a once thriving concern for more than 30 years.  These changes are happening all around us.  These two came close to home for me.  Both represent relationships and efforts of passion, respect, love, work, and long worked-for goals.  Both of these have been effected by powers and forces that can be controlled or predicted by no one, at least not precisely.  It is like knowing that you got in trouble in school and all day long, after the principal called your father in the morning after you left his office, you knew what you were going to get when you got home.  The certainty makes it no easier.  Surprise can be shocking, but the pain is just the same.  Perhaps the pain is worse because of the knowing that it is coming adds to the stress on one's mind, body, and soul.

I spent this holiday weekend emptying out these my temples.  Perhaps I shouldn't use the word "temple."  I am not trying to relay a preference for any religion, but rather something that expresses a part of the spirit that moved in me while spending time in them.  It is not the places that evoke these feelings, but rather the people and the time spent in each that developed that sense of spirituality.  So please excuse the verbiage if it offends you, but I wanted to convey the spiritual nature of these places.

As I was saying, I spent this past three day weekend trying to sort out and empty these two places.  Of course, moving is never really easy and not much fun.  My grandfather's house of course had a lifetime's amount of collection and unique pieces of craft and art.  Both he and my grandmother were very good with their hands and made many fascinating things.  Among these were little airplanes made out of shells.  The size of these and the intricate detail made these planes a future family heirloom and all the siblings wanted them.  My grandfather asked that I take them for my son so that they would remain in the family's name for generations, and I did so.  Did I want them, no doubt.  But the difference here is that among the sadness, this is what my grandfather requested.  Losing much of makes one independent is enough to drive most of crazy, but making sure that all of your belongings that give you a sense of place, history, human experience, and comfort go to those you desire to have them is important.  That is why those planes are now in my house.

Upon returning to from my grandparents home, I then had to go to the offices of my former business and begin the dismantling process there.  My partner and I purchased the business six years ago during the robust booming economy.  The business had changed hands before in the late 1980's, and it had been in existence since the late seventies.  The business had grown and trained many of the local engineers in the area.  Unfortunately, we had not paid off the loan we took out to purchase the business so the potential ramifications of its demise has a much more immediate effect.  This area had experienced a continuing boom during the businesses existence, it was not affected by the economic slowdowns of the late eighties and early nineties nor during the aftermath of 9/11/2001.

Again, the relics and artifacts of the life of the business serve only as symbols of that life and those that it touched.  The people and the team we had worked very hard to establish as well as the culture, was something to be proud of.  We had our difficulties - anything involving humans is messy.  But we also had a place where we wanted to be, where we wanted to give more than what we took away from it.  50 or 60 hours a week was not expected, but not uncommon and rarely considered a chore.  It was a spirit of community, not quite family, team that drew each of to work.  A sense of purpose, a sense that we were doing something important that each of us felt drawn to.  We loved what we did, most of the clients we did it for, and took special interest in the growth and development and personal lives of those we worked with.  This is something that moved my spirit.  It may be hard for some of you to understand, but this was a daily spiritual experience for me.  The regular and methodical way we worked together for a common goal had at its core a the sense of common bond, a connection of spirit.

As the artifacts do not have much meaning without the understanding of the who and the them that have shared the artifact for some purpose.  The relic carries meaning for the anthropologist studying culture, but nowhere close to the meaning for those that participated in the culture, that shared the time using the artifact.  The dismantling of these two temples are more than just another change in life we must face.  These are two cultures that are now forever gone.  For the family and for the members of our company, these mark a change in life.  Memories are all that will be left and the relics and artifacts that will help to evoke those memories.  Is a stapler spiritual, does it have meaning?  Does the children's book your grandmother read to you each time you visited have meaning?  Is it the type of use of the artifact that claims its meaning?  We live in the most material age in known history even though we suffer the affects of consumerism run amok.  But I feel confident in my 'hoarding,' that one day the meaning I give to those artifacts I still have and share with others during another time and place.

My pocketknife has a history, but only I know of most of it because it is with me most of the time.  If I give to my son or a friend the details of the history are mine alone.  I can give the sense of the what the knife represents to me, what it helped my accomplish and the meaning it has for me.  But when it is in the possession of someone else, the meaning changes because its known detailed history changes, usually being less than what it was.  Does it have a spirit, well no.  But can it represent a spirituality, a bond, an appreciation and that meaning changes with the person who holds it in their hand.  What is now an heirloom has changed its meaning for me.  It will change again when i give to my son as his life must have its own experience with the artifact which could either enrich or destroy it.

Neither of the dismantling of these two temples could have been avoided, postponed maybe, but not avoided.  Both were sparked by financial restraints that are the reality of the day, year (or a decade as it seems to be going), our times.  These two adventures were not the most pleasant excursions out of Plato's Cave, but it helps me to know that I once experienced the sun, its light, its warmth.  The artifacts in the cave hold little meaning despite their monetary value because there is not that sense of common goal, effort.  There is no sharing of community and purpose in the cave, more so each of us look through the darkness to make sure that no one else treads into our part of the cave, and tries to affect our little, insignificant spot watching the images appear on the wall.

From my little spot in the cave....

Its Justin Credibill