Lessons from a Canister Set

People were generous. We started as an engaged couple with almost nothing but the clothes in our respective closets. Remarkably by the time we were married, we had our new little apartment supplied with all of the essentials. There was even enough money left over for a few small luxuries. As we shopped with the end of our credit, I found I kept coming back to this set of porcelain kitchen canisters. I absolutely loved them and they matched our colors beautifully at the time. John was cautious if not a little skeptical. They were rather pricey. Would I really use them? Would we have room for them on our small countertop? And then he asked me one more probing question: “If you had to, would you grind them up to make plaster for a temple?”

As a young 20-year-old who’d never owned anything particularly fine before, I had a difficult time answering “yes.” But once I could, I didn’t feel so guilty making an indulgent purchase. We went home with the canisters. I never was able to look at them though without thinking “would I grind them up like the early saints did for their first temple?”     http://lds.org/friend/1975/03/sparkling-walls?lang=eng

Over sixteen years have passed since that event. The canisters have since held a wide variety of contents: the usual kitchen staples of flour and sugar, measuring spoons and cups, even box tops and milk caps the kids have collected for school. When I finally realized that their usefulness in my home was spent, when it was at last time to pass them on to another owner, I faced another struggle. I was reluctant to give them up, not so much for their functionality as for the reminder they have been to not set my heart upon material things. In the end, I sent them off as a charitable donation. Perhaps sharing them with someone I don’t even know was finally passing the test that allowed me to justify their purchase to begin with.

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