Garbage

An eerie, dusty smell filled the air, and a rotting shredded curtain waved behind the cracked window that was half-heartedly covered with masking tape.
I‘ve seen way too many homes like this while working for the local gas utility.
I was there to turn the gas off for non-payment. Oddly, this customer had a great history of paying on time, but recently payments had been sporadic and for the past three months no payment had been made. The meter was around back, but I could not get through, because the rotting gate, which was hanging by one and a half hinges also had a broken latch. I had been getting a lot of assignments like these since the downturn of the economy. Unable to get through the gate, I went around to the front door.
The front walk was littered with faded dirty scraps of old paper and dead grass. Kicking a crusty old can off the sidewalk, I carefully wound my way around the coils of a very aged, worn and seldom used garden hose lying across the walk.
I knocked on the peeling skin of the front door, half hoping that no one would answer and someone else would be sent to do this job later. Despite my pleas to the powers that be, a desperate yet manly voice answered “hold on, be there in a minute”. Several minutes later a man, with two days growth of beard, pulled open the sticking door, with a squeak, and with a disinterested shrug, looked at me through listless eyes. No greeting was offered just a vacant look waiting for whatever bad news or sales pitch I might have for him. “Are you Jim Clark?” I said with the warmest, caring voice I could muster and yet maintain some form of authority.
Peering past Jim and into the house I saw carelessly stacked piles of old and yellowing newspapers. Jim answered with a drawled and defensive “OK…?”
“I need to get to your gas meter in the backyard” I said, hoping to get away without explaining that I was turning it off for non-payment, hoping to just hand him the notice and run. The words I dreaded to hear floated grimly out towards me and hung in the air. “What for?”
“Well” I nervously stumbled to get the words out, “the bill hasn’t been paid in three months”. Jim just stood motionless and looked at me like a kid that had been disappointed so many times that one more didn’t really matter. Shrugging his shoulders he pointed towards the back door and shuffled towards a well-used and very old recliner with stuffing sticking out of the tears and a half broken footrest leaning sideways.
The stacks of papers I saw were just the tip of the iceberg. Stacked on counters, floors and tables was a huge assortment of papers, cups, old magazines and discarded old parts to various gadgets and old electric appliances. The smell was fairly tolerable, for the garbage that was more susceptible to decay was stuffed in a number of actual garbage cans on the side of the house. There were no rotting bodies that I could tell of anyway.
Walking towards the back door I asked the question, that everyone asks when they have no idea what else to say, “How are you doing?” It seemed as the words escaped my lips that the answer was obvious, even to the mangy cat curled up on the trash strewn kitchen counter. But ask it I did, and I even waited for his reply.
“Well” began Jim, “it’s been a rough year” and he began to tell me his story “Just when I thought things were starting to look up and my life was starting to show some signs of improvement. My wife grabbed the kids and left, I thought all was going pretty well, but about two years ago my wife Eunice just picked up and left. That tipped me over the edge. Every girlfriend I ever had ran out on me the same way. Now it was my wife and kids that I lived my life for.” I guess Jim just needed someone to listen, so I pulled up a milk crate and sat down next to him as he settled into his too well-used recliner.

It seems every girlfriend, and some that turned wives, eventually had rejected and pushed him aside. I must tell you, after listening to Jim, that this was not all their fault nor was it all his. It seems that Jim lived with a constant fear of never measuring up. This colored every word that he heard, every action and deed, that as nice as he was, no one not even him could stand up to it very long.
So, he just gave up and sat down. It didn’t happen all at once, but slowly, bit by bit he gave away pieces of his life to apathy and resignation.

Jim lost hope, and for one reason or another he chose to keep the garbage.

The garbage collectors came by every week to pick up the garbage ,and all he needed to do was take it out to the curb, simple enough.
But he didn't…
Day after day he just sat in his house and the garbage began to grow. First it was just papers on the counter that somehow seemed important. Then it became the stacks of old newspapers, you just never know what you might need them for. Soon, every broken and cast off old appliance and gizmo found it’s way into the house. It didn’t stop there. Before long, the yard started to fill with broken down lawnmowers and old cars that would never run. The house and yard began to seriously deteriorate, and his neighbors began to complain, and when Jim did venture outside he could see their looks and only guess what their whispers could be. This only made Jim more withdrawn and he collected more garbage. Even for all this, Jim couldn't understand why the neighbors had stopped being friendly.
As Jim continued his story I could feel the pain in his voice, and I believed he really wanted things to be different, but some unseen force seemed to hold him to that garbage. As bad as it all seemed to everyone around him, it became his normal,.

Somehow, the mayor of the city Jim lived in found out about his plight and even took an interest. One day he just showed up at Jim's house, and he even stayed for dinner. He spent time listening to Jim’s story just as he was. The Mayor seemed not to even notice the garbage, nor was he taken aback by Jim’s lack of care for anything.
The mayor obviously cared about Jim, garbage or no.
When they were done eating the Mayor asked, "Would you let me get rid of all this garbage for you?" warily Jim said "yes if you really want too,"
The mayor, still in all his fine clothes, rolled up his sleeves, and worked all that night and into the next day, until all that garbage was stacked in cans out by the curb.
The Mayor thanked Jim for allowing him to help him, and gave Jim his card and said if there was anything else he could do for him, all he had to do was call. Jim warmly shook his hand and choked back tears and even thought about hugging him but decided against it. Taking the mayor’s card, he went back to his old recliner and sat staring at the card the Mayor gave and pondering why anyone would do all this for him, especially someone so big and important.
Jim Clark sat back down in his house,
He enjoyed the clean feeling in his home, for a while.
As the days went by Jim got bored and lonely again,
He actually missed the garbage,
Jim went out to the curb sifted through his old garbage,
He found some that “just wasn’t that bad”,
Then Jim brought that whole can back in the house,
and over time opened it up and soon it ended up scattered around the house,
Thinking just a little garbage wouldn't hurt, he added some more.
After all, even his neighbors had some……
Time went by, and soon enough, Jim had even more garbage than before,
The neighbors began to complain again,
Jim became sad and lonely again…
Matthew 12:43-45
43 "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.44 "Then he says, 'I will return to my house from which I came.' And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.
45 "Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there; and the last state of that man is worse than the first.


QUESTIONS

1. Who is the Mayor?
2. Who is the man?
3. What is the garbage?