“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also”
— Luke 12:34
Several weeks ago I read and reread the following in Third Nephi, Book of Mormon, chapter 13:
19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and thieves break through and steal;
20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Since then I have been pondering this daily and noting things I treasure. Asking myself what it means to treasure something. Reminding myself that where I put most of my time, attention, and material possessions is likely what I treasure the most. Feeling conflicted at times about what I am treasuring. Not wanting to be completely transparent with myself about this. Too often finding myself lacking the will to treasure what Jesus was pointing to. And also trying to better treasure in the moment the uncomfortable and inconvenient.
The photo above was taken on a cold, wet, dark day in Spain while walking the Camino de Santiago with my wife a few months ago. Just a fallen leaf on a road that had been walked on countless times. But it caught my eye and filled me with happiness and gratitude. It connected me to a heavenly moment despite the dark weather. For whatever reason, I am often drawn to such treasures that might go unnoticed or unappreciated. It has been a gift throughout my life.
Since reading that passage, I have been noting all kinds of things I treasure. Like the fluid patterns of dancing sun squares on the bottom of the pool as I swam over them. How when I cross over the top of the Bambi trail into Millcreek, the dull constant din of the city disappears. I treasure the daily bowl of self-styled mush that I eat to break my daily fast and the Earth who provides the lives I eat which sustains me. I treasure deeply painful past experiences because my greatest growth has come from them. I treasure friends who give lovely thoughtful gifts. Strangers who are kind. I treasure my wife, my kids, and grand kids. My sweet dog to run with. The view of a forest-like trees out my kitchen window. My bed—especially on a cold night when so many lack such comfort and safety. Good books and conversations. I treasure a country built on unique and proven founding principles—a nation that is struggling yet filled with good people who share most of my basic hopes and values despite some stark differences. I treasure my continued membership and service in a flawed and imperfect church that continues to inspire and serve me and many others. And I especially treasure Jesus. At least I aspire to.
While listening to Craig Foster’s latest book, My Amphibious Soul, I have resonated with his unusual and profound experiences and expressions of treasuring Mother Earth—especially the African Sea Forest which he has spent most of his life exploring. Craig Foster created the autobiographical Oscar-winning documentary—My Octopus Teacher. At one point in this new memoir, he says: “I am grateful for my singular experience as a human tasting wildness in our living, breathing planet. I’m grateful for understanding I am connected by a thread to every drop of water, every breath of air.”
We often treasure what we are grateful for and vice versa. So what is the difference? I suppose how much time, energy, and attention we give to that which we are grateful for. At a time when so many want to focus on when Jesus will return and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth, it is instructive to consider how similar this sounds to the Pharisees demanding Jesus declare when the Kingdom of God will come. The Christ responded “…behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17: 20-21) Jesus is asking us to treasure the heaven within our hearts. The earth beneath our feet. Even the heaven within our enemy’s hearts. For that is where the Kingdom of God is. It is where we are at any given moment if we make it so. If we see what Jesus sees.
This sounds a lot like what Craig Foster said in My Amphibious Soul: “The tortoise, the spider, the frogs, were not only my kin, they were my ancestors. I had literally been born out of their millennia-old lifespring. What’s more, we all are born out of the substance of the giant rocks on the path I had just walked up. The same minerals in the rocks are inside our bodies.”
This Thanksgiving, may we lay up the treasures of heaven that daily surround us in our hearts. May we see and treasure the beautiful Kingdom of God within each other and all of creation—even a flattened fallen leaf on a cold rainy day road in Spain.
