picking up the pieces in Gulf Port

Some of us in our faith community felt convicted when several things came together at the same time...
...we were reading The Purpose Driven Life
...hurricanes hit the Gulf and millions of people were adversely affected
...we had vacation days or other time available to be gone for a few days
...someone in our church had some contacts with some people in the Gulf area

So we spent a week helping and serving others, in addition to being humbled at the immensity of the need there.

It took a lot of effort to just do something that seemed simple, such as, to just pick up and clear out a path so someone could get their vehicle in to what used to be their driveway. I was struck at what a tangled mess everything was.

Lying across the driveway were several sections of really nice black antique wrought iron fence. You would think the fencing would be easy enough to pick up and throw off to the side. In reality it couldn't be easily moved because there were so many things tangled up in it and interconnected with other pieces of the house, fallen garden walls, and paraphenelia.
Tangled in a four foot long section of fencing was/were:
a man's tie
a twisted and tangled shirt
four or so necklaces of beads, the type that they throw from the floats at Mardi Gras
thick nylon fishing line everywhere
a golf club
thick electrical wiring threaded through short sections of 2x4's
pieces of a picket fence
etc. etc.

Lying on top of that tangled mess was the sheet metal remants of a fireplace insert. Take away the sheet metal and broken tiles and underneath are all kinds of little pieces of memorabilia from the lives of the family that used to live there.
A track and field ribbon from a youth's athletic endeavor. I looked for the medal that would have been attached to it but couldn't find it.
a stack of snapshots that had been ruined by the salt water
a fully intact goblet
and so on and so on

Why do we cling so fiercely to things...things that can be gone in a moment or quickly be turned into trash? It can all be quickly turned into trash.