We had several buildings at home, beyond the dwelling house, dotted about the main yard and all recognised by the name with which they had been christened, though none actually fulfilled the job for which they had originally been intended. The byre, a temporary home for the occasional cow, had long since changed its function, since the family had stopped providing milk for the neighbourhood so now its major role was as a home for bits and pieces of junk that accumulated after the completion of various jobs but never disposed of because they still had some value either as replacement parts or possible resale at a later date. At one stage, this building housed, among its contents, a table, roof tiles, guttering, a selection of near empty paint tins, several internal doors and an old feeder that had a memory long enough to recall days when it was in daily use, doing the task for which it was made. Close by was the pig house and while I have some distant memories of four footed, snorting animals with curly tails, running about at ninety miles an hour and squealing like fans of a boy band, for almost all of my life, its three 'rooms' have been filled with all types of wooden boards, planks and broken apple boxes and, over the years, with the aid of a small hatchet that lies inside the door, have been used as firewood in the sitting and dining rooms.
Just a few yards away is what we always called the garage and generally it was used for just such a purpose, often the family car sharing the space with the family tractor and a small trailer. However, a quick glance around its perimeter would soon reveal that all types of junk lined its inner walls from tiny nails and screws to redundant cookers and fridges and tyres well past their sell by date.
The hen house was the one building that appeared after I was born, a roughish concrete block house with a corrugated tin roof and a couple of perspex skylights and for several years it was home to a large collection of cages that housed laying hens and provided some extra family income. But after the demise of that enterprise, it reverted to more of a store where lawnmowers, paint, sprays, weedkillers and bicycles were kept but succeeded in having its own display of junk, including a rare Eko electo-acoustic twelve string guitar whose neck had seen better days, the remains of my first six string guitar that would see no better days and a strange contraption, designed by a neighbour, that could be used to put several swathes of lawn grass into one big row and closely resembled a much larger machine called an 'acrobat' that farmers often used in the seventies to put hay into rows.
Facing it was the notorious 'black house' that was in position before I was and clearly by the presence of two large iron wheels underneath, had been towed into position but was no longer capable of any movement, though it did list to one side considerably. It was more like an old circus caravan with a wooden door on each side and got its name from the fact that dad painted it with tar every couple of years. Often, I would go down and sit on its wooden floor to marvel at the bits of junk, including old lamps, scythes, ropes, the ubiquitous empty paint can and several old rusty attachments that had been used when horses had been favoured over the tractor that hung around its walls and also at the piles of old books that were stored in a chest that looked more appropriate to contain treasure, which in a way I suppose, old books are.
And I suppose I never lost the desire to hoard junk, for our own house had its fair share of things in the attic and stored away in cupboards that, for some reason or another, I seem to think might be useful at some stage. But nowadays the word junk had taken on an entirely different meaning for even as I write this, I am acutely aware that junk mail may be sitting in my email box and I know now that, in this case, it will be disposed of immediately. But it doesn't end there, for health experts now constantly bombard us with statistics about 'junk food' and even though like many others, I have watched the 'Super Size Me' programme about one man's attempt to survive on a certain brand of fast food, I would have to confess that on more than one occasion I have found this form of junk more than a little tasty!
My dictionary describes junk as anything that is worthless and so often we can litter our lives with such things and even allow them to dominate. The Psalmist says 'Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.' Paul goes even further by telling us to get rid of the junk in our lives that can stop out spiritual development, when he writes to the Colossians'But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.' And likewise, Peter also says to 'Rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind.' You know, sometimes we just need a good clear out of everything that holds us back form a deeper relationship with God for at the end of the day everything is worthless, except knowing Jesus as Saviour and Lord. Isn't it time spring clean?
