Brad has been telling me about this particular podcast for a while:
This American Life, produced by Chicago Public Radio. I had my first opportunity to listen to it over these past few days and heard one of the most fascinating
narratives of a man, Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh - a sociological professor at Columbia University, and Sudhir's friend, a man named Nellie who lived in the South side of Chicago.
Nellie made a living, a very good living, illegally selling ammunitions in the neighborhoods where he lived. It was the exorbitant amount of cash that Nellie received from his job that ended up creating more of a problem than he ever imagined. He became racked with guilt in regard to his acquisition of the money and was ashamed to tell any of his family about it. What's more, it started creating incredible paranoia and panic attacks as Nellie would fear that something would happen to it, as he had to resort to hiding the money in mattresses or large garbage bags that he would hide in his yard.
Sudhir remembers the day that he went over to Nellie's house only to find him alone in his room, emotionally distraught, surrounded by crumpled up small bills totaling thousands of dollars. He begged Sudhir to help him find a solution to his problem.
"What do you people do when you have too much stuff?" Nellie asked Sudhir.
"Well, whenever a lot of our possessions would accumulate, we would sometimes have a garage sale in our neighborhood," Sudhir explained.
Excitement and relief splashed across Nellie's face as he quickly began making preparations for his own yard sale, a very special yard sale. Nellie began finding various appliances and pieces of furniture around the house. A vacuum cleaner got a few hundred dollars shoved into its bag. A television carried several hundred dollars in a back compartment. Couch cushions and an older mattress had numerous bills stuffed into them. And when the clandestine handiwork was completed, the items were taken outside to his front lawn where Nellie and Sudhir waited for some buyers.
After being ordered several times by Nellie that he must not say ANYTHING about the secret stash, Sudhir relates his interactions with the various shoppers for the day. A homeless man pushing a shopping cart came and bought the vacuum for $15, excited to sell it back to the Thrift Store for $30 later that day so he could make a quick profit. A group of women coming from church wanted to buy the couch, but didn't want to keep the cushions as they looked kind of lumpy and smelled funny.
And although Sudhir would try and persuade the people to look deeper in their purchases, the buyers would only look at him as if he were crazy. You can't really blame them. What would a homeless man do with a vacuum when he lives under a bridge? And why would ladies want to keep lumpy old cushions? Sudhir humorously relates his frustrations trying to convince people to look beyond what they could see or understand.
While I in no way condone money laundering or illegal selling of munitions, the story was an amazing illustration of people having no idea what kind of treasure was inside the most ordinary belongings. It brought to mind the verse from 2 Corinthians 4.7, "But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not us." As Paul notes, our outward, frail, and fallen bodies are the perfect vessel for God to hide His treasure in us, creating the most beautiful picture of redemption for even the most ordinary of His children. And often, people think us crazy for putting so much value into those
"ordinary vessels" that we see walking around. It's the knowledge of the treasure that is inside them, however, that makes all the difference.
May God give me His eyes to see His bright and beautiful treasure inside His "vacuum cleaners" and "couch cushions" and continue to hide His treasure inside this ordinary appliance to surprisingly bless the lives of those who meet me.
